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CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 




J 

CHRISTOPHER 

AND 

CRESSIDA 


BY 

MONTGOMERY CARMICHAEL 

AUTHOR OF 

“the SOLITARIES OF THE SAMBUCA,” “in TUSCANY,” 

“the life of j. w. walshb,” etc. 


Nrm fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1924 

All rights reserved 



?z 


C J£ 


Copyright, 1924 , 

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 




O' 


Set up and electrotyped. 
Published December, 1924. 



Printed in the United States of America by 

THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK. 

DEC-3 *24* Q 

©Cl A 81 4087 

'Vi o V 



S. M. G. 

AB I. 


EX CORDE PLENO 










So they lov’d, as love in twain 
Had the essence but in one; 

Two distincts, division none: 

Number there in love was slain. 

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; 
Distance, and no space was seen 
’Twixt the turtle and his queen: 

But in them it were a wonder. 

Property was thus appall’d 
That the self was not the same; 

Single nature’s double name 
Neither two nor one was call’d. 

Reason, in itself confounded. 

Saw division grow together; 

To themselves yet either neither. 

Simple were so well compounded. 

That it cried, “How true a twain 
Seemeth this concordant one! 

Love hath reason, reason none. 

If what parts can so remain.” 

From The Phoenix and the Turtle. 


[ 7 ] 




CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introductory. 11 

CHAPTER 

I. Christopher. 17 

II. Cressida. 55 

III. Anxiety. 70 

IV. Despair. 83 

V. Eclipse. 92 

VI. Seclusion. 113 

VII. Expiation. 139 

VIII. A Place in the Sun. 164 

IX. Requiem JSternam. 187 

Appendix: Wee Jesu and St. John- 
NIKIN. 209 


[ 9 ] 
























» 

















INTRODUCTORY 


It was in the autumn of 1913 that I left the 
Sambuca to write of the religious life led in 
that remote Solitude by a small band of men, 
all laymen not bound by any monastic vow. 
My book did not appear until December, 1914. 1 
Meantime the War had broken out, and aban¬ 
doning all idea of returning to the solitary life, 
I hurried home to see what work I could do for 
my country. Too old to enlist, I was given 
work in a department of the War Office where 
my languages were of use, and I was not re¬ 
leased till September, 1919. 

* # * # # 

Being now freed from duty, my thoughts 
turned once more to the Sambuca, where I had 
found my natural element and real vocation in 
life. I came unannounced, walking up from the 
village, as I had done on the eventful day of my 
first arrival. Soon I was on the crisp gravel 
road that runs along the spur of the hill, no 
longer the strada mulattiera I had known, but a 
1 The Solitaries of the Sambuca, London, Burns & 
Oates, 1914. 

[ii] 


INTRODUCTORY 


handsome carriage road. A little further and 
I was in the lovely cypress avenue that leads 
to the portals of the Solitude, and could dis¬ 
cern the semicircular inscription in the arch 
above: o beata solitudo: o sola beatitudo. 
Not a soul was visible, nowhere was there any 
sound of human life. I pushed open the 
postern gate eagerly as I had done seven years 
before, and entered the inclosure. Quickly I 
ascended the familiar path leading to Cas- 
auban’s cottage. . . . 

On the edge of the greensward, before the 
cottage, I paused abruptly. Under the porch 
of the little house sat a figure very unlike 
Casauban, smoking a meditative pipe. It was 
that of a man over sixty, an obvious English¬ 
man. Instead of the white tunic of the 
Solitaries, he was wearing an ill-fitting, well- 
worn suit of dark tweeds, and big Italian boots. 
His beard attracted immediate attention. It 
was sparse and uneven, and there were places 
at the sides where it had refused to grow: 
patches of fair hair were still discernible among 
the grey. Altogether a grotesque deformity it 
seemed, and one could not but wonder why he 
should wear it, for clean shaven he would have 
been decidedly handsome. The nose was finely 
chiselled, and the blue eyes, fresh, clear, and 
[ 12 ] 


INTRODUCTORY 


youthful. He was very unmistakably a gentle¬ 
man, but nothing could be gathered of his 
character by merely looking at him. Nor could 
one in the least divine what he was or ever had 
been. There was a look of fatigue in the face, 
as of one whose life had been a strain, but that 
would probably disappear in intercourse. One 
thing, however, was quite evident to me: that 
though here, and at home in the Sambuca, he 
was no Solitary. What, then, was he doing in 
the Solitude? 

He caught sight of me and advanced to meet 
me, briskly, inquiringly. The tired look had 
gone out of his face: he was alert and business¬ 
like. 

“I expected to find Mr. Casauban here,” I 
explained. 

“Ah! then you’ve been here before!” he 
exclaimed. 

“Yes,” I replied; “I lived here six years ago. 
I was one of the Solitaries.” 

“I suppose you left to join up like some of 
the others ?” he inquired. 

“No. I had left before the War broke out. 
I left to write a book about the place.” 

“What!” he cried in genuine astonishment. 
“Are you the author of the Solitaries of the 
Sambuca? Are you Mr. Daniel Mauldsley? 

[13] 


INTRODUCTORY 


That is extremely interesting to me. Let us sit 
down and talk. I owe it to your book that I 
am here-” 

“But,” I interrupted, perhaps looking him 
up and down, “are you a Solitary?” 

“No, I should hope not,” he blurted out, but 
quickly pulled himself up and apologised. 
“No,” he continued, “I’m only the business man 
and manager of the place. My temperament is 
entirely active. I admire the solitary life be¬ 
cause the Church admires and exalts it, but I 
couldn’t live the life'of this place for two days 
together.” He broke off and reflected for a 
moment. “You will be anxious to see Casauban, 
no doubt. He shall be told that you are here. 
For a long while now he lives almost exclusively 
in one of the reclusoria adjoining the church. 
I use his cottage now for my office and house. 
I suppose you have come back to lead the life. 
Your old cottage shall be got ready for you as 
soon as possible.” 

* * # # * 

We chatted on a while like old friends, and, 
indeed, there was a charm of manner about him, 
a perfect self-possession, an absolute straight¬ 
forwardness, that made it easy to know him and 
agreeable to talk to him. “You found me in 
[14] 



INTRODUCTORY 


rather a deep brown study when you arrived,” 
he continued. “I have a pretty nasty job to 
think over at present. The Father Confessor 
of this place, for whom I will admit I have 
unbounded respect, has put it on my conscience 
to write a sort of account of myself. But even 
supposing I were willing instead of most re¬ 
luctant, I can’t write two lines unless it’s a 
business letter. Now, as soon as I learnt who 
you were, I said to myself: here’s a man who 
has written one book from what he heard an¬ 
other man tell; if he would only do as much for 
me I should get over my difficulty. Because, of 
course, I can talk all right. Please don’t say 
‘no’ straight away. Get to know me a bit first. 
Well, at all events, we won’t talk about it any 
more at present,” he went on, waving aside my 
protests. “As managing man, I must look 
after your material wants. Come along with 
me to the villa outside. I fear you will have to 
stand being put up there for the night. To¬ 
morrow you shall be properly installed in your 
old cottage, and there I hope you will bear with 
an occasional visit from me until you’ve helped 
me through with my difficult task.” 

* * * * * 

I ended by doing as he desired, and here 

[15] 


INTRODUCTORY 


follows his story. I found him a brilliant, 
impetuous talker, sometimes eloquent, always 
vivid. I have done what I can to narrate as he 
narrated to me, and to preserve the impression 
of his words, but of the canvas which he painted 
in daring colours with a swiftly moving brush, 
I fear that little but an outline sketch has re¬ 
mained. I have thought it better, too, to sup¬ 
press a certain free-and-easiness of speech, not 
to say slang, under which he tried to make light 
of his sufferings and hide his good qualities. If 
my sketch has lost in colour by this, I think it 
has gained in fidelity. 

On the rare occasions that he quotes from a 
book, I have tried to give the exact reference 
in a footnote. 


[16] 


Christopher and Cressida 

CHAPTER I 

CHRISTOPHER 

I am the only son of the late Eustace 
Hilarion Gideon Mavourez, 1 Esquire, Fellow of 
Learned Societies, who began life as a banker, 
and ended as an antiquary of much diligence 
and no little fame in a restricted circle. In 
1710 my great-great-grandfather, Simon 
Mavourez, second son of the 11th Lord 
Cleresby, married Johanna, only daughter of 
Hieronymus van Wissenkercke, head of the 
famous banking house of Antwerp and Bruges, 
and so it happened that my great-grandfather, 
Christopher, was born with a strong turn for 
trade and finance, the first phenomenon of the 
kind in a long family history. With the sub¬ 
stantial fortune which he inherited from his 
mother, he was able to follow his bent, and wish- 

1 This very un-English looking name has the very 
English sound of Mawers. 

[17] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


ing to live in England, he bought himself a 
partnership in the London banking house of 
Peter & John Casauban, somewhere about the 
year 1740. The two branches of the family 
then tacitly parted company. The Mavourez 
were hot Jacobites, and they regarded it as a 
shame and disgrace that one of their race 
should have persevered in amassing wealth in a 
counting-house, rather than have given his life 
on the field of Culloden in defence of the right¬ 
ful King, as did the 12th Lord Cleresby. 

The Mavourez have ever been chivalrously 
devoted to the cause of the rightful King. Sir 
Guy Mavourez was created Baron Cleresby in 
1463 by Edward IV for conspicuous services 
to the White Rose. Their attachment to Mary 
Stuart, to Charles I, Charles II, and James II 
lives in history, and down to the death of the 
Cardinal of York, they remained unwaveringly 
loyal to the exiled Royal family. The life and 
purpose seemed to go out of them a bit when 
there was no longer a lawful sovereign to fight 
and scheme for, but in the first half of the nine¬ 
teenth century they drifted into the service of 
legitimate sovereigns abroad, such as Charles 
X of France, the two Don Carlos of Spain, 
Dom Miguel of Portugal, and the Bourbons and 
Austria-Estes of Italy. 

[18] 


CHRISTOPHER 


The Mavourez, too, had always been un¬ 
bending Recusants. There is not a single in¬ 
stance on record of one of the family having 
fallen from the Faith or made a marriage out¬ 
side the household of the Faith, and those of 
them who fell from practice into a wild life, 
almost invariably made a penitential end. The 
16th Lord Cleresby, a notorious rake and 
spendthrift, died in a Trappist Monastery in 
South Africa at the close of last century. 

A peculiarity of the family is that every 
member, from the mid-thirteenth century on¬ 
ward, has borne the homely name of Gideon, 
in addition to another distinctively family 
Christian name. The origin of the custom is 
not at all obscure. Sir Hugo de Mavourez, 
who took the Cross in the third Crusade, was 
knighted by Richard Coeur-de-Lion before the 
walls of Acre in 1191. He did not start for 
England with his Royal master, for he had re¬ 
ceived a much higher call. On the night of 
September 1, 1192, being the date on which 
King Richard signed a truce with Saladin, as 
Sir Hugo was praying at the door of his tent, 
a window in the dark sky opened and he saw in 
a blaze of light a steep rocky mountain. On 
the summit of this sat a beautiful lady, 
crowned, and attended by heavenly spirits. All 
[19] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

up the steep way toiled, two and two, a band 
innumerable of hermits, young and old, dressed 
in black and white striped cloaks, each with his 
staff, and Sir Hugo saw himself, dressed like 
the others, bringing up the rear of the pro¬ 
cession. Unlike the others, above his head 
alone, shone a white light from which tiny 
tongues of flame leapt upwards. At the head 
of the procession walked a hermit taller than 
the rest, with long white beard and very noble 
mien. He held no staff like his followers, but 
was bearing aloft a long two-edged sword, and 
at the end of the sword there blazed a light, 
and from the light shot upwards red spiral 
tongues of flame. The light and fire from the 
sword reflected back on the hermits’ faces, 
which shone with ardour. Every now and then 
their majestic leader would turn round and 
wave his sword as if in encouragement, and 
every time he did so the flames from his sword 
spread right across the heavens from east to 
west, like brilliant summer lightning. And in 
the midst of this light in the sky, just as if 
Heaven itself had opened, Sir Hugo saw a 
lovely Babe seated on a throne, wearing a 
purple mantle lined with ermine. A large 
imperial crown was on his head; in his left hand 
he held an orb, in his right a golden sceptre. 

[ 20 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


He smiled down upon Sir Hugo with laughing 
eyes, and with his sceptre waved towards the 
top of the mountain. The mountain was 
Carmel, the lady the Queen of the Mountain, 
the leader of the procession the prophet Elias, 
pater et dux , the hermits her loyal subj ects and 
servitors, coming to pay homage at the foot 
of her throne. Sir Hugo fell upon his face in 
an ecstasy of adoration, and in that position 
he was found in the morning by his squire. 
There was no mistaking the significance of the 
vision, and Sir Hugo promptly ascended Mount 
Carmel, and was admitted to the band of 
hermits who dwelt in caves and huts round the 
fountain of the Prophet Elias. The 1st of 
September was also the Feast of St. Gideon, 
Judge in Israel, and Sir Hugo for that reason 
changed his name to Gideon. When these 
hermits were obliged, after the first quarter of 
the thirteenth century, under pressure of the 
infidel invasion, to leave Palestine for Europe, 
Gideon, an old man of seventy, returned to his 
native country. He did not j oin any community 
of his Carmelite brethren, but lived an 
anchorite’s life in a cave near Cleresby Castle, 
at a place now called St. Gideon’s Well. Ac¬ 
cording to the legend, the old anchorite’s only 
worldly solace was a pet greyhound, and there 
[ 21 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

is a late fourteenth-century picture of him over 
the altar of the castle chapel, representing him 
in striped cloak with a greyhound nestling in its 
folds. He died at a great age, acclaimed a 
Saint by the infallible popular voice, and locally 
received the honours of the Altar. Since that 
day every Mavourez has been put under the 
patronage of the great family Saint by receiv¬ 
ing the name of Gideon in baptism, and from 
him date the days of the family greatness. He 
represents—as Sir Hugo, chivalry; as St. 
Gideon, sanctity; the two chief family 
characteristics, at least in aspiration. The 
very colours of his cloak have a signification 
for us: black (our shield, and the colour of our 
armour) stands for chivalry; white (the 
wedding garment or robe of light) stands for 
sanctity. This curious striped cloak—the 
original form of the Carmelite Cappa—was 
taken to the castle chapel. It is put to a 
singular use for a relic. Instead of being re¬ 
ligiously preserved, or shared with other 
churches, a small piece is cut off and given with 
some ceremony to each member of the family 
when he starts in life. There is a tradition 
that when the cloak has been entirely used up, 
the family will become extinct, in accordance 
[ 22 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


with the old doggerel distich still repeated in 
the neighbourhood: 

When St. Gideon’s cloak is parted and done, 

Mavourez of Cleresby’s race is run. 

These details must weary in the twentieth 
century, I know, but I am what my forbears 
made me, and if you are going to be so good 
as to do a sketch of my life, it is necessary that 
you should know what manner of men they 
were. My father’s magnum opus is a book 
called, St. Gideon Mavourez: Crusader and 
Anchorite. He takes the brief life from the 
Acta Sanctorum Anglioe, gives the variants at 
foot from codices in the Bodleian, British 
Museum, and Lambeth Libraries, and then 
launches into a wonderful mass of notes that 
take up seven-eighths of the volume. He dis¬ 
cusses fully the original Carmelite habit, and 
especially the question whether the stripes on 
the cloak were harry or paly , concluding 
triumphantly for the former. The luckless 
wight, who in a number of the Notitia 
Heraldica, attempted to show that they were 
bendy , is treated with all the withering scorn 
merited by such an aberration. He proves— 
and this is really rather interesting—that the 
original Mavourez livery colours were yellow 
[23] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


and red, and that they were changed into white 
and black in the thirteenth century, un¬ 
doubtedly in honour of St. Gideon’s cloak. 

* * * * * 

# 

Enough, and you will say too much, about 
our great St. Gideon. Certain essential family 
particulars you will find in Debourke, a copy of 
which is in the library here . 2 But I must not 
forget to mention another peculiarity in family 
nomenclature. Humphrey, Lord Cleresby, who 
lived through the Elizabethan persecution, put 
all his children under the special patronage of 
a particular Saint so as to obtain for them 

a I take the following from the peerage in question 
and from other sources for the benefit of the curious in 
such matters. Creations: Baron 1463; Baronet of Nova 
Scotia, 1640; Count of the Holy Roman Empire, 1507. 
Arms: Sable, a chevron between three roses argent, 
barbed and seeded proper. Crest: An arm in armour 
embowed proper, couped at the shoulder, holding a 
broken spear. Supporters: Two greyhounds argent, 
collared azure. Motto: La Foy et le Roy. Seats: 
Cleresby Castle, Lincolnshire, and Mavourez-Melcombe, 
Devon. Town Address: Cleresby House, Carlos Street, 
Mayfair. The three roses argent were added by King 
Edward IV in the patent of nobility in honour of three 
daughters of the house, Mary, Blanche and Celia, whom 
he saluted at the Castle after Towton Field as three 
lovely white roses, swearing an oath that they should 
blossom forever. The supporters, of course, have their 
origin in old St. Gideon’s pet greyhound. 

,[ 24 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


steadfastness in the Faith. That is the sig¬ 
nificance of the third Christian name which 
every Mavourez has since borne. The custom 
of the three Christian names was religiously 
carried on by the severed branch from which 
I spring. I am Christopher Austin Gideon, 
and my grandfather was Andrew Benedict 
Gideon. 

Yet another peculiarity of the family is its 
periodical rake and its periodical antiquary. 
My old cousin, Ludovic Aloysius Gideon 
Mavourez, was well-known to scholars and 
frequenters of the British Museum Reading 
Room, and his immense knowledge, of which he 
was ever prodigal, was freely used by other 
people. His monumental and life-long work, 
the “Vitos Interfectorum Regum , or the Lives 
of the King-Killers from Ehud, who slew Eglon, 
King of Moab, down to the vile murderers of His 
late Imperial Majesty, Alexander II, Czar of 
all the Russias” (such was the title when it was 
approaching completion), was never finished 
and will certainly never be published, but the 
bulky MS., with his voluminous notes and 
excerpts, has been deposited in the Bibliotheca 
Archeologica in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for the 
use of scholars, and its immense stores— 
[25] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


especially of seventeenth-century lore—will as¬ 
suredly prove of great value to historians. 3 

My father was a curious example of rever¬ 
sion to type. For several generations his for¬ 
bears had been solid, steady bankers. Catholics 
always, and regular at Mass at the Sardinian 
Chapel, they yet seemed to be a different race 
from the quixotic elder branch, always the 
champions of lost causes, that grew side by side 
with them. Something of the Cavalier face 
and head characteristic of that branch re¬ 
appeared in my father, but none of its peculiar 
dashing romanticism. He had reverted to the 
type of the Mavourez antiquary with all the 
passionate devotion to the minutiae of history 
that characterised, say, Nicholas Jerome 
Gideon Mavourez (fl. 1740), a famous 
authority on the science of seals. 4 But I think 

3 Some outline sketches of the 16th Lord Cleresby 
and his brothers, Ludovic, the antiquary; Humphrey, 
the soldier; and Everard, the priest, appeared in the 
Month of February, March, April and May, 1895. The 
Mavourez greyhounds have, quite unaccountably, been 
erroneously blazoned in the March number, or instead 
of argent. 

4 His magnum opus is: De Sigillis Regum Principum 
Procerumque qui ab aevo Longobardico usque ad 
tempora nostra in Italia floruerunt Tractatus Historicus, 
etc. Accedunt varige dissertationes ad rem sphragisti- 
cam pertinentes, necnon, etc. (I cut out a large slice 

[ 26 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


my poor father had a spice of pedantry that 
was less conspicuous in Nicholas and, as I be¬ 
lieve, wholly absent in Ludovic. “No, no,” I 
can hear him saying in the deliberate tones of 
earnest conviction which so momentous a sub¬ 
ject required; “no, no, it is decidedly an incor¬ 
rect blazon to say that there are three lions in 
the shield of the Kings of England. No, no, I 
don’t mean that they are leopards: that is a 
convenient, perhaps a useful, convention of 
French heralds. What I mean is that as all the 
three royal brutes exactly resemble each other, 
there can be no question of three lions, for no 
three beasts are ever exactly alike. Are there 
then three representations of one lion, you ask? 
No, no; I do not see my way to going as far as 
that. I do not see my way for the present to 
going further than affirming that they con¬ 
stitute three representations of lion! [O 
blessed accent of triumph!]. But how blazon 
a fact that carries us into the highest regions 
of metaphysics, that sweeps us into the very 
heart and centre of the doctrine of universals. 
How indicate a subtlety, etc.” I suppose he 
really was without equal among his British 
contemporaries in minute and voluminous 

of title-page). Cum indicibus locupletissimis nominum 
et rerum, etc. 


[ 27 ] 



CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


knowledge of the noble science, for, being a 
linguist, he was familiar through and through 
with the heraldry of all European countries. 
And if he was facile princeps in the science of 
arms, I doubt if he had his equal either in the 
science of seals. Later on he became the 
founder and first president of the London 
Sphragistical Society, 16, Adelphi Terrace, 
and his portrait, in oils, hangs over the lovely 
Adams mantelpiece in their library. The 
Society has been a success, and, according to 
the learned in such matters, has supplied a 
want. 

When my father first began to taste the 
sweets of antiquarian lore, and found that 
he belonged to a family the history of which 
by itself could occupy him for the rest of his 
days, he took steps to get into touch with the 
elder branch, for the two branches had held no 
communication since 1740. The reconciliation 
was most cordial, and he was invited to com¬ 
plete the family tree. He was able to show his 
cousins that his own immediate forbears had all 
married the daughters of gentlefolks, and if 
gentle, then noble, and if noble, then armiger- 
ous. Thus it appeared that in the whole known 
pedigree of the Mavourez, quite complete from 
the reign of Richard I, defective here and there 
[ 28 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


before that, just as there was not a single 
mixed marriage, so was there not a single non- 
armigerous marriage. The antiquarian mind 
of my father was dazzled by this vasty ocean 
of sang azur, as much as were my eyes as a 
child by the myriad, exquisitely coloured coats 
of arms on the pedigree which covered the 
greater part of a wall in his sanctum. I like 
figures, but I should shrink from working out 
the great sum of how many quarters I am 
entitled to! 

My father, at the age of twenty, inherited a 
handsome fortune and a partnership in the 
Casauban Bank. After two uncomfortable 
years in the city, in which his utter lack of 
business ability was manifest from the first 
day, he sold his share in the bank to the exist¬ 
ing partners. He had already married—a 
youthful love marriage characteristic of the 
family—Donna Bona Cavalca, of the ancient 
Pisan house of Cavalca, my incomparable 
mother. His income at the time must have been 
quite £5,000 a year. I have never properly 
understood how he came to lose the greater 
part of his fortune. He was utterly alien by 
temperament either to speculation or the greed 
of gain. But he would do anything that an 
antiquary told him, and I rather suspect that 
[29] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

a certain rascal with antiquarian tastes per¬ 
suaded him to try doubling investments to the 
profit of one and the loss of the other. Much 
money was sunk in quarries, and was never 
yielded up again by the quarries. But he 
appears to have taken fright before he was 
quite ruined. It must have been his own idea— 
it would be like his idea of good finance— 
but he invested what was left him in annuities, 
thus cutting himself off from the possibility of 
leaving a penny to wife or children. He ex¬ 
cepted, however, £4,000 in cash for “necessary 
expenses,” or “to meet any crisis,” but which 
finally chiefly went in books, MSS., engravings, 
illuminated miniatures, and seals and their 
matrices, now in Adelphi Terrace. Rigid 
economy was to be the order of the day. We 
gave up Harley Street, warehoused our furni¬ 
ture, and went abroad. For me this was a 
fortunate circumstance. We spent some years 
on the Rhine, moved to Tours for a year, and 
ended our Continental life between Bruges and 
the Hague. It is for this reason that I speak 
French, German, and Netherlandish. It was 
my mother’s particular wish that we children 
should speak her language like our own, and 
from the first we had an Italian nurse, Teresa. 
But for sphragistical reasons we never lived in 
[30] 


CHRISTOPHER 


Italy. We went there several times on visits, 
and I can remember a lovely spring spent at 
the Villa Cavalca, near Calci, where she was 
born. 

That same mother of mine, whom I can 
describe as literally of sainted memory, was 
the most beautiful character I have ever .known. 
No person formally consecrated to God’s 
service has ever seemed to me quite so perfect. 
There was nothing about her to show that she 
was deeply religious: she would quietly ignore 
most talk about religion, for religion is not a 
subject of conversation with Italians. But if 
the mainspring of her goodness was hidden, 
there was everything about her to show how 
fine was the quality of that goodness. She 
made goodness attractive to me from earliest 
childhood. I was quick, impulsive, fond of play 
and amusements: some teachers of religion 
would have driven me into dangerous mischief. 
I could have loved goodness for her sake only, 
but she knew how to put goodness on its own 
high and true plane, even to a child. I remember, 
when I may have been about six years old, 
sitting on her knee one evening in the dusk, my 
arms round her neck, I took a deep, strong, 
childish vow to myself that I would always be 
good for Christ’s sake. And the effects of that 
[31 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


vow remained and worked within me till I was 
past man’s estate, and when suddenly it became 
obscured in a terrible darkness, such had been 
its sanctifying potency that I fell not merely 
to earth, or into the bowels of the earth, but 
into the very depths of lowest hell itself. 

My mother’s favourite spiritual reading 
was Pere Caussade, on the Abandon a 
la Providence Divine. She would read and 
expound Pere Caussade to us children (I had 
two sisters), and thus from a very early age I 
became watchful and observant of all happen¬ 
ings in my life, trying to detect in them 
“Faction de Dieu” and the Will and Wish of 
God. Thus, unlike people in the world to whom 
D.V. means little more than “God permitting,” 
I used to try to ascertain what God desired and 
ordered me to do, and this custom, to which I 
was very attentive, does much to explain the 
sunny, cheery, absolutely happy life I had until 
I was overtaken by the eclipse. My mother 
also coached us, so to speak, most thoroughly 
in Rosmini’s Maxims of Christian Perfection , 
and to him, too, I owed much of my early 
contentment. 

We had lessons from a German governess. 
I was from the first very quick at learning, so 
long as there was no question of book-learning. 

[ 32 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 

For reading I had no turn or inclination, but 
I could stand being read to for hours. I doubt 
if any man of my opportunities and education 
has read so little. Indeed, in comparison with 
other men, it would hardly be an exaggeration 
to say that I have done no reading at all. 
Without question I had an unusual, to be truth¬ 
ful I may even say a remarkable memory, and 
so long as I heard things I seldom forgot 
them. My mother read aloud to us most 
constantly,—scripture history, history, fairy 
tales, ballads, the Lives of Saints and so forth. 
All this I allowed to sink into me, and never for¬ 
got. Most of her reading was done in her own 
melodious Tuscan. My chief delight—my treat 
—was the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, 
the Vite dei Santi Padri, in the lovely old Tus¬ 
can of the holy Friar, Domenico Cavalca, of 
the Order of Preachers, from whose family she 
was descended. She also read us the Fioretti 
again and again, but the Santi Padri remained 
my favourite. Up to the time I went to school 
at the age of eleven, and even afterwards, 
when home for the holidays, would she read 
to me to my heart’s content. For all which 
may Heaven bless her! Without her what 
would I have known worth knowing, or what 
[33] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


would there have been within me on which my 
heart could feed? 

# * * * * 

As a child I was a bit dreamy and imagi¬ 
native, in spite of the strong commonsense 
that was there all the time. And, indeed, I 
cannot see why the two should not go together. 
At Aix-la-Chapelle we lived in the Hoch- 
strasse, on the first floor over a shop. I was 
about four when we came here: it was our first 
halting-place abroad. I remember that one 
evening, looking out of the nursery window—it 
was already dark—I saw a figure in the sky. 
There was no light round the figure; all its 
light was from within. The face and the 
shoulders only were visible. The head was 
covered with a white linen monastic veil, like 
the veil of a Tertiary. The figure was very 
still and composed, the face wonderfully benign. 
I was too young to feel any astonishment, and 
I certainly felt no alarm. It vanished suddenly, 
and the night seemed very dark. I saw the 
figure again, four or five times. I called it God. 
The face was brighter than ever within: it 
was like a great and glorious lamp poised 
in the black dark night. The last time I saw 
it the face was illumined from within as by the 
[34] 


CHRISTOPHER 


glory of the sun; the stars were shining bright 
all round; the crescent moon hung just below. 
Only years afterwards did I learn the words 
Mulier amicta sole, et luna sub pedibus ejus, 
et in capite ejus corona stellarum . 5 I never 
saw the face again, but in the place where it 
had appeared I used to see a shimmer of white 
light and little tongues of red flame rising 
quickly and vanishing almost at once. 

Another time,—it was about three years 
later, we had moved to Bonn, I had just 
turned seven—I remember one evening late, 
sheltering on the Kreuzberg from a storm with 
my sisters and our nurse Teresa. Then for a 
while afterwards we stood watching a wonder¬ 
ful play of summer lightning. Flash after flash 
leapt over the skies from Cologne right away 
over to the Drachenfels. I remember my sister 
Betty saying, “We shall see right inside 
Heaven soon!” And then a very bright 
flash began and stood still in the sky high over 
the Rhine, towards the Drachenfels. I saw 
inside it a shore of golden sand and a silver sea 
beyond, and on the sand stood a woman facing 
me. She was wearing a white dress and blue 
mantle, and on her head was a white veil like the 
veil of a Tertiary. Her face was the same as 
6 Apoc. xii. 1. 


[ 35 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


that which I had seen over the Hochstrasse in 
Aachen, but the brightness now was all around 
her, and not from within. In her arms she held 
a lovely curly-headed babe. He was dressed in 
a little white shirt, and had a resplendent halo 
round his head. Over his left arm hung a sheaf 
of yellow corn; his chubby little right hand was 
lifted up in the act of blessing; he leant down 
towards me with a smile in his eyes,—and then 
the flash finished, and the heavens, as it were, 
closed. Flash after flash began to play again, 
but he did not come back. I was not greatly 
surprised at what I had seen. My father had 
from earliest childhood poured into my ears 
stories of the visions my ancestors had seen, 
and I knew that St. Gideon had beheld a Royal 
Infant in the skies. And assuredly I was not 
in the least alarmed at the vision. I remember 
saying to myself as we walked home: “Why, 
it was Holy Mary at Aix all the time!” 

I had not told my mother about the face at 
Aix-la-Chapelle, but I told her what I had seen 
in the summer lightning, high over the Rhine. 
I could not understand at the time why she sud¬ 
denly burst into tears and left the room, nor 
why, when she came back, she pressed me so 
close to her, rocking me backwards and for¬ 
wards on her knee, nor, least of all, why her 
[36] 


CHRISTOPHER 


hot tears began to fall again on my face. She 
could paint and illuminate beautifully. A week 
afterwards she gave me this, done by herself. 
[He produced from his pocket a lovely little 
picture of the Infant Jesus, brilliantly, almost 
daringly coloured. He is dressed in a little 
white shirt, holds a sheaf of yellow corn over 
the left arm, and is blessing with the right hand. 
He is sitting on a roof with big Italian red 
tiles, surrounded by the trees usually found in 
an Italian villa garden. There are low blue 
hills behind, and a flaming sky above.] No 
doubt there is symbolism in all you see, which 
I don’t profess to understand. I know that the 
palm tree stands for the Cross, and its fruit 
for Him Who hung upon It. 6 If you are learned 
in such matters, I daresay the Canticle of 
Canticles would give you a clue. But why 
citrons and not pomegranates? Just look at 
the back of the little picture. She has printed 
in finely drawn Gothic characters: ET IN 
TEMPORE VESPERI ERIT LUX: And at nightfall 
there shall be light. What a knowledge of Holy 
Writ she had! This text, no doubt, has 
reference to the lightning I had seen late in 

6 Dm: Ascendant in palmam, et apprehendam fructus 
ejus. I said: I will go up into the palm-tree, and take 
hold of the fruit thereof.—Cant. vii. 8. 

[ 37 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


the evening, and it may have reference to the 
supernatural light in darkness in the day that 
is neither day nor night. 7 “Keep this always,” 
she said. And then she explained for the first 
time: “Your name means Christ-bearer. Jesus 
wills that you should carry Him in your heart 
right across the dangerous stream of life. Let 
this little picture always remind you of His 
loving desire.” 

After this she did other beautiful little 
coloured drawings for me, and first of all the 
Child Jesus in a purple mantle lined with 
ermine, wearing a big imperial crown and hold¬ 
ing the orb and sceptre, just as He is said to 
have appeared to St. Gideon Mavourez in the 
sky above Acre. Then she did me coloured 
adaptations of nearly the whole of Anthonie 
Wierix’ series of engravings of the Heart, each 
showing the Child Jesus with much energy doing 
some good work in or about a heart. She has 
greatly spiritualised Wierix. Look at this one, 
which I like almost best of all the series. It 
represents a vigorous golden-haired Child in 
filmy pale-blue tunic, vigorously sweeping the 
vermin and unclean beasts out of a heart. It 
moved and influenced me almost miraculously 

7 Et erit dies una, quae nota est Domino, non dies 
neque nox; et in tempore vesperi erit lux.—Zach. xiv. 7. 

[ 38 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


at a moment when the Pit threatened to close 
its mouth over me for ever. 

Close in my affections, however, runs another 
drawing representing the Child Jesus striking 
a golden harp in the act of praise inside a 
human heart. He is dressed in a delicate rose- 
coloured tunic, and stands upon silver clouds. 
The heart is filled with an azure sky, fretted 
with pearl. Round His head is a noble halo, 
and His figure is entirely encompassed by the 
splendours of a majestic vesica. Above the 
heart hovers the Holy Dove, glorified, sending 
light and grace into its depths. Look for a 
moment at the sweet little picture. What 
exquisite colouring! She might have founded 
a new school of religious art, and saved the 
sanctuary from many a degradation. On the 
back she has printed in her delicate Gothic 
characters: dominus DEUS tuus IN medio tui 
FORTIS: IPSE SALVABIT. GAUDEBIT SUPER TE 
IN LAETITIA: SILEBIT IN DELECTIONE SUA: 
EXULTABIT SUPER TE IN LAUDE. The Lord thy 
God is within thee, mighty: He shall save. He 
will rejoice over thee in gladness: He will be 
silent in His love: He will joy over thee in 
praise. 8 Again I say, what a marvellous 
knowledge of* Holy Writ! Are there any- 
8 Sophonias, otherwise Zephaniah iii, 17. 

[ 39 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


where else women who can quote the Minor 
Prophets? Not in Italy, certainly. 

* * * * * 

Facts and experiences which cannot well be 
explained—I call them appearances—occur in 
many old families. They are of long standing, 
and do not vary much from the original type. 
The old family goes on experiencing and quietly 
believing. It has no wish to make these heir¬ 
looms public, but it is not at the pains to cor¬ 
rect the extravagant views of them that gain 
currency. To you, because it seems essential, 
I speak of these things. I have told you of my 
childish experiences. And I have told you of 
the great vision of St. Gideon, hermit. You 
should perhaps also know that our history is 
full of stories of visions and appearances in 
which mysterious lights play a great part. It 
is said that when a Mavourez first meets his 
true love, he sees a pure light playing round 
her head. This is vouchsafed him as an assur¬ 
ance that his love is approved in Heaven. It 
may appear again, especially to reaffirm and 
encourage when the course of love is not 
running smooth, but only if the fidelity of both 
lovers remains perfectly unshaken. It is seen 
on their wedding day, but after that no more. 

[ 40 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 

There is a doggerel couplet that bears out the 
story: 

When the shimmering light shows from above. 

Deep and pure is Mavourez love. 

More than one of the Carolean poets has sung 
the pathetic loves of Orlando Mavourez and 
Lady Lettice Warham, and the greatest of 
them all refers to the pure flame that played 
about her virgin head when her boy husband 
was called from before the Altar to fight for 
the King’s cause. He was a youth of rare 
beauty and comeliness of person, and she a 
flaxen-haired child of smiling grace and dim¬ 
pling loveliness. Like Romeo and Juliet, the 
Mavourez love young and marry quickly. 
Orlando and Lady Lettice found a courageous 
Friar Laurence to make them man and wife at 
eighteen and sixteen. Orlando parted from his 
bride at the foot of an improvised altar in a 
Recusant farmhouse, called away by a special 
message of Lord Francis Villiers to rendezvous 
in haste with “divers other young noblemen.” 
She stood at the farmhouse door in her white 
satin bridal dress, and as he turned on his 
horse to bid her a last adieu, waving his sword 
and gaily shouting the Mavourez battlecry of 
Le Roy , he saw the light shining brightly round 
[41] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


her flaxen ringlets, and he knew that they would 
love unto the end. Alas! poor boy! The end 
came next day. He was killed in the skirmish 
at Nonsuch Park (July 5, 1648), gallantly 
fighting against heavy odds, backed against a 
tree, side by side with Lord Francis Villiers, a 
boy like himself, and he might equally with 
Charles Ca’ndish have been sung as “the young, 
the lovely, and the brave.” 9 

Terrible is our story when love makes ship¬ 
wreck and the light fails. Here again there is 
the warrant of a doggerel distich: 

Dies on her brows the golden flame, 

Mavourez love doth end in shame. 

During the Elizabethan persecution Peregrine 
Mavourez loved the only daughter of a house 
with a very noble past. Her father conformed 
to the new religion to save his estates. The 
daughter resisted bravely for a time, and would 
have defied Church and State to marry her 
lover. But even in those days it was not always 
easy for young people of eighteen to get 
married against their parents’ wishes. After 
five years of waiting she surrendered, as if by 
evil enchantment, to the influence of a fanatical 
divine with Genevan notions, who now held the 
9 Waller’s Epitaph to Colonel Charles Cavendish. 

[42] 


CHRISTOPHER 


village living, and fell into the extremes of 
fantastic Puritan mysticism. She told her 
lover that she was renouncing him for some¬ 
thing higher. There was no light about her 
head when they parted. He himself suffered a 
complete eclipse, falling into the wildest dis¬ 
sipation, and sinking down into the nethermost 
depths of card-sharping and cheating. 

Mavourez love doth end in shame. 

He was struck down in a drunken night 
brawl, but lived for two days. There is no 
record of any repentance; one can only hope 
that the great merits of St. Gideon and his 
ancestors may have saved him at the eleventh 
hour. 

And now enough, and too much, of family 
history. 

* * * * * 

My childhood passed away swiftly, a dream 
of happiness, and like a true Mavourez, I 
responded to the romance of the romantic 
lands in which we lived. I knew many Ger¬ 
man ballads and hymns by heart, and learnt 
the lovely Rhineland legends from our German 
governess. From nine years old to eleven we 
lived at Bruges, and when I came home for the 
holidays we had moved to the Hague, for 
[43] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


heraldic rather than sphragistic reasons. I 
took to the Netherlandish tongue with delight 
—the blood of the Van Wissenkerckes, I 
suppose, stirred within me. Soon I began to 
pick up ballads and hymns from our old 
Flemish maid. My favorite was a song that 
told of a day’s gambol in the fields of Wee Jesu 
and St. Johnnikin. It has hummed in my brain 
ever since. 10 At the Hague, I remember being 
taken to the theatre and seeing Yondel’s 
tragedy of Gijsbrecht van Amstel. The sono¬ 
rous moving language of the great ode to the 
married state which occurs in this play, rang in 
my memory even then, but only in part. When 
I was seventeen I wrote it down and never for¬ 
got it again. It tells of my ideal of the married 
state. When I was twelve years old my father 
definitely abandoned life abroad, and settled in 
Woburn Place, Bloomsbury, where any defects 
in the glamour of the address were amply made 
up to him by the near neighbourhood of the 
British Museum. 

* * * * * 

At eleven years of age I was sent to a good 
Catholic school in England. School was a sur¬ 
prise, but I got hold of the lay of the land in a 
10 1 give a translation of this lovely old religious ballad 
at the end of the book. 


CHRISTOPHER 

day, and hardened at once into the matter-of- 
fact, wide-awake, self-assertive sort of chap I 
really was. The romanticism of the Rhineland, 
the sentimentalism of the Netherlands, grew 
faint. I warmed to the school, and the prac¬ 
tical hard-headed Van Wissenkercke came out 
in me strong. I did well at school, without 
doing any serious study. Figures I took to 
at once with real delight, and from the first I 
always got full marks for arithmetic. The 
Latin I learnt remains with me still, though I 
have not since opened a Latin book other than 
a missal, a psalter, and the Imitation. I got 
plenty of prizes, especially for athletic sports, 
for I was active, wiry and strong beyond my 
years. My life at school was immensely happy. 
Perhaps I was a bit too keen about fighting, but 
many of my forbears have done little else. I 
was, as far as I understand it, absolutely good 
while at school: in fact, some of my fighting 
was about decency and good conduct. I was 
religious, of course,—again as I understand 
it,—but I don’t think anyone would have 
guessed it. I was at a Catholic school, and 
religion was there in plenty as a matter of 
course. We all took our turn at serving Mass, 
and there were Catechism classes and regular 
Confession. But, as is the way with a lot of 
[45] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


gentlemanly boys, we took it all quietly and 
as a matter of course. As for myself, I don’t 
consider I had, or have, any religious feeling . n 
All the same, I simply loved the Church, and 
was immensely proud of being a Catholic. I 
would then, as I would now, cheerfully have 
given my life for the Faith: then, as now, I 
feel that that is about all the good I could do 
for religion. I fully realised the extraordinary 
goodness of God to me, and was deeply grate¬ 
ful in my heart. But I had no active bubbling 
stream of high feelings on the subject, and 
nothing to offer Him in return except my at¬ 
tempts at decency and good conduct. As to 
pra}^er, or what is called mental prayer, I 
simply had no gift whatever. I could ejaculate 
petitions when I was in need or trouble, and I 
had a regular petition about the great business 
of my life: keeping good. Otherwise I had to 
fall back on prayers and psalms and litanies 
which I knew by heart, and especially on the 
comfortable, even-flowing, musical Rosary. I 
think I may say that at school I was both good 
and religious, though even my most intimate 
chum did not know it. I came away from 

U I know what the speaker means, but here I can’t 
quite agree with him. The strong common sense was 
there, but the finest feeling went along with it. 

[ 46 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


school knowing the essentials of my religion 
wonderfully well. That was owing to the 
oral teaching and to hearing so much 
Catechism repeated by other boys. I en¬ 
joyed dogma. Wonders were to be looked for 
in the Divine Economy, and the wonder of 
dogma appealed to me by its reasonableness. 
I realised, perhaps with a fullness beyond my 
years, that the Catholic Church alone repre¬ 
sented God’s Order upon earth, and that to fall 
from it was to fall into mere imitations not 
willed by Him, or into simple chaos. Then I 
was matter-of-fact, and the Catholic view of 
God’s Order appealed to me as commonsense 
and tangible. I suppose in any other religion 
I should have found myself an outcast as a 
slave to the concrete and a foe to the ideal. 

In these happy school days, full of boisterous 
fun and the serious business of athletics, I 
never gave a thought to a future profession. 
God, I believed, would indicate. My mother’s 
teaching that the Will of God could be clearly 
known was my beacon then, and has been since. 
If an event presented itself without my seeking 
it, without my taking one thought to bring it 
about, that might be safely looked upon as a 
manifestation of the Will of God. When I have 
acted on this doctrine it has never failed me. 

[ 47 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Once a man has the profession which God in¬ 
tended for him, he lives in the daily discharge 
of God’s Will, and he should continue in the 
duties of that profession until there is an 
equally clear sign that he is to change. “Ces 
devoirs sont la manifestation la plus certaine 
de l’Ordre de Dieu,” says Pere Caussade, “et 
rien ne leur doit etre prefere ,” 12 and “the first 
thing,” says Rosmini, “which the Will of God 
lays down for the Christian is to fulfil with 
fidelity, exactness and alacrity, all the duties of 
his state.” 13 A man’s life, however prosaic his 
profession,—though I cannot admit that any 
profession is really prosaic,—a man’s life be¬ 
comes divine because ordered according to 
God’s Will, and this dutiful attention to the 
divine dispositions will obtain him extra¬ 
ordinary blessings,—and especially the bless¬ 
ings of peace and a regular, full, happy life,— 
if only he observe the divine commandments 
also, for they are no less a manifestation of the 
Divine Will. 

* * * * * 

When I was about fourteen, and while at 
school, my matchless mother died. I cannot 
very well speak about this even now. There 
13 Abandon, 9th edition, 1886, vol. i., p. 16. 

13 Maxims of Christian Perfection, p. 42. 

[ 48 ] 


CHRISTOPHER 


were only ten days to the end of the term, 
and I was not sent back to school. My dearest 
mother! She taught me that the more a man 
was good the more he was a man, and I under¬ 
stood, and believed, and tried to practice. 
Bona was her name, and 0 Bonitas! the motto 
most often on her lips. It was she who could 
interpret the Will of God for me because she 
was a Saint. Four years later I was to enter 
on the great event of my life, in which the bless¬ 
ing of God seemed to rest upon me in all its 
fulness, and with her to guide and counsel, 
perhaps my life would never have suffered that 
eclipse which in a manner is enduring to this 
day. 


* * * * * 

When I returned home for the summer 
holidays, being then sixteen and a half years 
of age, my father informed me that there was 
a clerkship for me in Casauban’s Bank, that he 
had no influence anywhere else, and could do 
nothing else for me, that I had shown a turn 
for figures at school, and that I had better,— 
in fact, that I was to take it. The salary was 
only £25 a year, but if I dedicated myself, etc., 
I might one day redeem the family fortunes and 
resume the eretime family position in the bank. 

[ 49 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


I accepted eagerly. Here was just what I had 
hoped for when the day came: divine action 
independent of myself. Besides, I actually 
liked the idea of the work. I had no fear, and 
I could have no doubt about my fitness for it. 

Before going into the bank, I went down to 
Cleresby Castle, and was ceremoniously invested 
after Mass with my piece of St. Gideon’s cloak. 
I observed that there was but little of it left, 
and that the family could hardly hope to reach 
the middle of the twentieth century. The old 
stuff crumbled almost at the touch, and my 
scrap was put in a small silver reliquary, which 
I am wearing round my neck at this moment. 
John Cajetan, 17th Lord Cleresby, was at the 
time at the height of his wild spendthrift career, 
and it was tacitly understood that everything 
which related to the sacred customs of the 
family should be carried out by his brother, 
the heir, the Hon. Kenelm Mavourez, formerly 
Colonel of the Duke of Modena’s bodyguard. 

My first day in the bank showed me that 
I was not mistaken in the opinion I had formed 
of it, and I took to the work at once. The 
atmosphere of brisk activity, the clink of the 
gold, the swish of the notes, the constant com¬ 
ing and going of customers and clerks, the 
long columns of additions which I could do with 
[50] 


CHRISTOPHER 

lightning-like rapidity; and then the crowded 
busy streets of the city, through which I 
threaded my way with a bulging case of bills 
of exchange, and later on with large sums of 
money, intoxicated me, and I thrilled to the 
work. I was observant, and my Flemish level 
head and Italian quickness stood me in good 
stead. By keeping eyes and ears open, by a 
certain natural aptitude I had for plumbing 
essentials and grasping first principles, I 
quickly acquired a knowledge of banking busi¬ 
ness far beyond the opportunities of a budding 
clerk. At the end of six months my £25 a year 
became £40, and old Casauban wrote my father 
a note to say that I was a very promising bank 
clerk, and he would keep his eye on me. I was 
elated. By the time I was twenty-one, I re¬ 
solved, I should have at least £300 a year, and 
by the time I was thirty I should be a partner 
in the Bank, even though I might not have a 
stiver of capital to put into it. I was certain 
of success. I had the ability right enough, and 
the only other thing required of me was that I 
should conform to God’s Will, keep His com¬ 
mandments and lead a good life. Then omnia 
qucecumque faciet prosperabuntur. People on 
very high planes may be tried in the fires of 
adversity and utter ruin and come out pure 
[51] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

silver: ordinary mortals are suffered to pros¬ 
per so long as they are good. I was an ordinary 
mortal, and I looked forward to prosperity. 
It was in my power to be good. I knew exactly 
what I had to do, spiritually and temporally. 
Often did I think of my childish vow, and in 
a very real way my mother was still at my 
elbow with her encouragement and advice. Her 
memory was the holiest of human things which 
I possessed. I was boyishly fond of amusement. 
The theatre early attracted me. It was all 
vocal, and its many lessons easily learnt and 
remembered. In 1873 I saw Irving in Charles 
I, a great night in my life. My cousin Ludovic 
took me to the stalls. He was a delightful com¬ 
panion for a Stuart play. A still greater night 
in my life was when I saw Irving in Hamlet. I 
thought I had never heard such melodious 
language as that wonderful old English: Ger¬ 
man, Flemish, French, Italian, all paled before 
it. By myself I could afford nothing better than 
the Pit, but that haunt is associated in my mind 
with the happiest possible hours. I saw Irving 
again and again, even from the Gallery when 
pocket money was scarce, and if the music of 
the greater part of Hamlet, Macbeth and 
Othello is still ringing in my brain, I owe it to 
[52] 


CHRISTOPHER 

him. Nor do I forget the lovely Juliet of 
Adelaide Neilson and the manly Romeo of 
H. B. Conway. The Othello of Salvini, the 
Rip van Winkle of Jefferson, the Desdemona 
of Ellen Terry, the Ophelia of Miss Gerard, 
the Rosalind of Ada Cavendish, the Jaques 
of Herman Yezin, the Old Adam of Chippen¬ 
dale, the Touchstone of Compton, the crowd 
of great actors and actresses I saw from the 
Pit in different memorable productions of the 
School for Scandal—these are all delightful 
memories of an important part of my educa¬ 
tion. I became aware, of course, as I walked 
home after the theatre, of the whirlpool of 
vice circulating everywhere around me. It filled 
me with nothing but repugnance. I could not 
realise how it could be, or become, in any way 
attractive. I was fond of dancing, too, and 
kept up athletic sports at Catford Bridge as 
well as a city clerk can. My love of amusement 
was absolutely innocent, and did not in the 
least interfere with my religious duties. I would 
have given up any pleasure in the world rather 
than fall out of God’s Order, or run counter to 
His commandments. I never failed once in 
those early years in weekly confession and 
communion. 

[53] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


And so, between hard work and wholesome 
pastimes, a year and a half sped swiftly by, 
and I don’t think there can have been a happier, 
or more hopeful, or more contented boy in the 
whole of the vast pulsating city of London. 


[ 54 ] 


CHAPTER II 


CRESSIDA 

One evening, when I had been doing a bit of 
overtime at the bank, Charlie Bouverie, son of 
one of the Bouveries, the bank’s solicitors, who 
was putting in a couple of years to learn bank¬ 
ing business, asked me if I would like to come 
along with him to a dance at the schools of a 
neighbouring City church. Teachers and their 
friends, quite informal, no dress. Charlie and 
I frequented a fencing and boxing academy to¬ 
gether, went up the river sometimes on Satur¬ 
day, and were rivals for the half-mile at Cat- 
ford. Consequently we had become chummy, 
though not intimate. “I’d love it,” I said, and 
off we went to the dance together. 

I was standing in the middle of the room, 
deliberating on finding a partner for the next 
dance, when I saw a girl come in with her father, 
a tall, spare clergyman with an eager, worried- 
looking face, but an air of great refinement and 
[55] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


distinction. He turned aside to greet a friend, 
and she, left alone, was quietly gazing round as 
if in search of acquaintances. ... I did not 
see it come: it was there already: not a dancing 
light: a fixed, white radiance like an aureole. 
It vanished at once, and I saw two or three little 
spiral tongues of flame play above her head 
and disappear ascending. All this in about 
three seconds. The light did not astonish me, 
but the girl, O the girl! She was the wonder! 
She was the glory! What need of the flame of 
my ancestors to tell me that this radiant 
creature was my heaven-sent bride, and that 
God would bless our union for ever. “There she 
is! There she is!” I cried, exultingly. “Thank 
God! Thank God! Now I shall always be 
good !” As I eagerly walked over to where she 
stood, her eyes met mine, and I do not doubt 
that she too was saying: “Here he is ! Here he 
is! Thank God! Thank God !” The noblest 
love is love at first sight, as is amply proved 
by our family records. I held out my hand and 
said: 

“My name’s Chris!-” 

“And mine’s Cressida!” she replied, radiantly. 
And thus clasping hands we were in that very 
instant betrothed for ever, two glowing souls 
[56] 


CRESSIDA 

in one transfused and bound inseverable, for 
weal or woe. 1 

We moved ovetj to a bench against the wall 
to sit down. I could not talk. Cressida! Cres- 
sida! I was saying to myself. Cressida! Cres¬ 
sida ! all that I understood of poetry was in 
that name. Cressida! Cressida! How the 
name suited her, too. Her figure was slight, 
her face pale, the beautiful eyes deep blue; her 
thick, red-gold hair still hung upon her shoul¬ 
ders, for she was a child just over fifteen, the 
age of sweet love that cannot err in its choice, 
whereas I had turned eighteen and came lagging 
a year or more behind the great historic lovers 
of my family. Oh, she was heavenly sweet, but 
rather because of the angelic purity which 
graced her like the aureole which I had seen 
for a fleeting second, resplendent round her 
lovely head. When I saw that I loved her now 
and for ever, I thanked God that I had struggled 
to keep my childish vow to be good, for had I 
been evil I could never have loved so dear and 
sweet a vision. Now all would go well with me 
for ever. The priest’s love for his Lord, the 
1 Here the music of Vondel’s great ode on the married 
state has obviously got into his language: 

Twee zielen gloende aan een gesmeed. 

Of vast geschakeld en verbonden. 

In lief en leed. 

[57] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


nun’s for her Spouse—these are above mine, but 
mine, too, is holy; mine, too, is a consecration; 
and so particularly blessed is it, that it is con¬ 
secrated by a Sacrament rendering it everlast¬ 
ing and indissoluble. Moreover, this was the 
bride chosen for me by the Will of Heaven, and 
indicated by a light from Heaven such as had 
guided elect souls among my ancestors. Such 
love can come once only, and is never ending. 

“Let us go for a walk,” I said. “It is im¬ 
possible to talk here.” We went out into 
Bishopsgate Street without our hats. It was 
a glorious May evening. The city had nearly 
emptied itself, and Bishopsgate was like a quiet 
stream. Still I could not talk. Cressida! 
Cressida! I could not tire of singing that ador¬ 
able name to myself. Presently we came to St. 
Helen’s Place, quiet and hushed as a Carthusian 
cloister, not a soul about, not a sound audible. 
It was still as old Capulet’s orchard at mid¬ 
night. “Let’s go in here,” I said. “Here we 
can walk up and down and talk to our heart’s 
content.” And so we did. First it was neces¬ 
sary to tell each other all about ourselves. I 
spoke first and told her of my father and his 
studies, of my mother, her beautiful name and 
her adorable ways. I told her, too, something 
of my forbears, their high loyalty and chivalry, 
[ 68 ] * 


CRESSIDA 


their steadfast devotion to the Faith, and how 
they had died on the scaffold for King, and 
been martyred at the stake for the cause of 
Christ upon earth. She, I learnt, was a daugh¬ 
ter of the Rev. Cyprian Vaughan. I had heard 
of him, as indeed had most people at that time, 
for he had recently done a year’s imprisonment 
for Ritualistic practices. He was rich, but 
had purposely chosen a parish in the East 
End in order to work among the poor. He 
had built schools, and a club-house for men. 
Cressida, home from school because of an illness, 
was not going back, but was finishing under his 
tuition and soon w r ould begin to help him in 
his work among the poor. His father was old 
Sir Timothy Vaughan of Llanymdovery, a 
Welsh baronet. I told her and explained that 
my father would be content because she was 
armigerous, and then I had to explain and tell 
her what armigerous meant, and I told her of 
the big pedigree on the study wall where her 
name would soon be written and the Vaughan 
arms beautifully painted beside our names. 
Presently we stood still in front of the big 
house at the end of St. Helen’s Place. She 
went up the two steps leading into the house, 
and leant against the railings. I stood below 
and looked up to her, and I could not but think 
[59] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


of a certain balcony in Verona. A misty Lon¬ 
don moon shone high in the heavens, the stars 
were only dimly bright. But I felt that no 
glories such as these could have shone over old 
Capulet’s garden, nor among the ladies of all 
Verona could there ever have been seen so fair 
a vision as my Cressida. 

“Cressida,” I said. (I had never said, “I 
* love you,” or, “do you love me?” That golden 
silence which is greater than silvern speech had 
made us one from the first. Love with a single 
breath had fused, soul with soul and heart with 
heart, together .) 2 “Cressida, we must get mar¬ 
ried at once. It is the right thing to do.” 

“Yes,” she replied, “I know.” 

“It should be to-morrow,” I continued, “if 
that were possible. My ancestors often married 
at seventeen and eighteen, and their fathers did 
not disapprove because they had done the same 
thing. Besides fathers have nothing to do with 
it. Love is right and holy. My father would 
no more think of disapproving our marriage 
than he would of putting a veto on my con¬ 
firmation. But there is one difficulty. My 

a Vondel again: 

Daar zoo de liefde viel, 

Smolt liefde ziel met ziel 
En hart met hart te gader. 


CRESSIDA 


salary is only £70 a year. We can’t live on 
that. The only thing will be for us to live with 
father and the girls until I’m making enough 
to keep us. That’ll be before so very long. 
I am just eighteen now, but I haven’t been 
long at banking. In another three years, per¬ 
haps before, we shall be quite independent.” 

“Yes, Chris,” she replied; “whatever you 
arrange is sure to be right. But father is rich, 
quite rich, I believe. He loves me above every¬ 
thing in the world, and would never dream of 
refusing me anything so good and right as our 
marriage. I know so well what you mean when 
you say it is holy. I am sure he would give us 
all we required to live on. Did you see him 
come in with me? He is kind; oh, so kind. I 
am all that he has in the world. His one wish 
is my happiness.” 

“I daresay that would be all right until I’m 
earning enough,” I replied. “But I should 
prefer to pay him back if you think he wouldn’t 
mind. In any case it is a sacred duty to marry 
at once, for it is Heaven’s Will that we be mar¬ 
ried, and to delay might be sacrilegious. Of 
course if there were any real, true, great reason 
why we should not be married now, we could 
wait for years. The King’s service often 
separated a Mavourez from his betrothed for 
[61 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


years and years, but that only made their love 
stronger and holier. Love like ours, which is 
the great love, with the unmistakable sign of 
Heaven’s Will upon it, will give a man and 
woman strength for anything—even to part for 
ever at a very high call, and yet continue to 
love for ever. But as far as we can tell, we 
ought to be married to-morrow if possible.” 

“Dear heart,” said this sweet child, for the 
first time letting fall a tender little expression, 
“how brave and good what you say! I loved 
you when we came in at these gates, but without 
understanding. Now I know you, and I know 
love, and I could leave you here to-night for 
years and love you still more when we met again. 
But all the same I’m glad that we can be mar¬ 
ried so soon.” 

I had thought of the money difficulty, but 
the religious impediment never occurred to me 
until she reminded me that her father was a 
clergyman. An impediment it was, but not a 
difficulty. I had but to show this rare and 
radiant and spiritual creature, on the one side, 
l’Ordre de Dieu, on the other the confusion 
prevailing outside, and she would understand 
and be at peace with herself and at one with 
me. Even two glowing souls could not be per¬ 
fectly conjoined whilst the least stain of con- 
[ 62 ] 


CRESSIDA 

fusion or uncertainty troubled the clarity of 
one of them. 

“Cressida,” I said, “I am of the ancient Faith 
as I have told you. You are not, but you are 
already a Catholic by desire, because we are 
united in a love which will not allow us to be 
divided in God and the things of God.” 

She raised her hand to stop me. “Whatever 
you are, I am, Chris! I begin to understand. 
And it is enough for me to hear you speak to 
know that all you say and wish must be right.” 

“Yes, I knew you w T ould see at once what was 
right,” I replied. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t 
be married in a fortnight. I will find out about 
formalities. To-morrow evening I will speak 
to my father about bringing you home. Tell 
your father everything without loss of time. 
When shall we meet again, and where? This is 
Thursday-” 

“I am going to an aunt’s in Regent’s Park 
on Saturday morning. We could meet at the 
Hanover Gate side of the lake in the afternoon.” 

“Couldn’t be better. I have a half-holiday 
on Saturdays. Will three o’clock do? Now I 
ought to be taking you back to the school. It 
has struck half-past nine, and you have to go 
home at ten.” We walked back in silence be¬ 
cause the chant of the adorable name had begun 
[63] 



CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


again and would not be silenced. “And now, 
good-bye, good-bye, Cressida. On Saturday 
all will be arranged, and very soon we will be 
joined together beyond all possibility of being 
parted!” 

You will not, I am sure, imagine that because 
I loved this child with all the strength of my 
soul, and all the reverence with which the 
Catholic Faith invests a woman, that I ceased 
to be level-headed or commonsense, or that I 
slackened in devotion to religion or business. 
On the contrary, this, my betrothal, was like 
a species of Sacramental nourishing me spiritu¬ 
ally, and as to business, love only strengthened 
the motive which religion supplied to discharge 
my duties with fidelity, exactness, and alacrity. 

* * * * * 

I had a painful scene with my father on 
Friday evening. Poor dad! he never got angry, 
and now did not know how to do it. Absorp¬ 
tion in study had made him excitable, too, and 
when I told him that I was going to get married 
in a fortnight’s time to a clergyman’s daughter, 
and asked leave to bring her home to live with 
us, he grew incoherent. In his own misery and 
helplessness he could not pitch upon the right 
words or phrases of condemnation, and said 
[64] 


CRESSIDA 


many harsh and untrue things which he did not 
mean. I kept my head, for I gathered one 
clear, momentous, terrible fact from his speech: 
that until I was twenty-one I could not be 
legally married without his consent, and that 
his consent I should never in any circumstances 
have. This news did not really disconcert me: 
in fact it had the effect of calming me. It 
meant that there was a real, true obstacle to 
our being married for another three years— 
but then our love was ready and strong enough 
for a life-long wait if that were necessary. If 
thore were a legitimate obstacle to our marrying 
now that was the Will of God, and what more 
could we wish than to know that Will? 

***** 

I went to the trysting place by the lake with 
a heart composed and at ease. But I found 
a very sad and troubled Cressida there. 
Though the sun was shining brightly, faintly 
I saw about her brows the reassuring light, 
and was more than ever calmed. She came 
hurrying towards me eagerly. “Oh, Chris, 
Chris!” she cried, “I’ve had such an unhappy 
scene with poor father. I was so full of peace 
and happiness on Thursday night that I told 
him everything when we got home. He cried, 
[65] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

Chris. He threw his arms on the table and 
sobbed. It was terrible for me to see. Only 
think of it: I have no brothers and sisters, and 
mother died ten years ago. I am simply every¬ 
thing to him and of course I love him dearly. 
And then he got in a terrible rage, and I had 
never seen him angry before. He said cruel 
and untrue things about you: that you were 
an adventurer and wanted to marry me for 
money. (I didn’t even know that I was en¬ 
titled to money through mother when I came of 
age.) He said that when he and grandfather 
were dead I should be the heiress of Llanym- 
dovery, as there was no one else left, and would 
I throw myself away on a miserable bank clerk? 
And then I got angry, and told him how your 
ancestors had died on the scaffold for the King 
and been martyred at the stake for our Lord’s 
cause upon earth. But he was most of all 
beaten down when I told him you were a 
Catholic and that I was already a Catholic 
by the baptism of desire, and I should soon be 
received by a priest. He put his hands before 
his face and groaned aloud. I was cut to the 
heart to see him so miserable. Till Thursday 
night he was all the world to me, and I am still 
all the world to him. I pitied him with all my 
heart, and tried to comfort him by telling him 
[ 66 ] 


CRESSIDA 


how good through and through you were. But 
he got very angry again, and forbade me ever 
to see you again, and forbade me to leave the 
house. I told him that I loved you which meant 
that it would be wrong and wicked to give you 
up. I said that I had passed my word to 
meet you to-day, and that I would keep my 
word. I had to escape this morning while he 
was in church, and have been waiting here ever 
since. He told me that I could not be legally 
married till I was twenty-one without his con¬ 
sent. Oh, then, Chris, for the first time, my 
heart gave way. If that is true what is to 
become of us?” 

“Cressida dearest,” I answered, “come, let 
us sit down and talk quietly. I, too, have had 
a stormy scene with my father, and have learnt 
that people can’t marry without the consent 
of their fathers till they are twenty-one. If 
that is the case, and I will make quite sure of 
it, there is nothing to fret or worry about. 
Unhappily in these days there is no saintly 
Friar Laurence who, recognising that true love 
is from above, would join a pair of true lovers 
together in holy matrimony in spite of parents’ 
wishes. Your father and mine may be wrong 
about the law. In that case we will marry, 
and I know my dear cousin Ludovic would 
[67] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


take us in till I earned enough. But if they are 
right, well then, dear Cressida, it is nothing to 
us if we have to wait five and a half years till 
you are twenty-one. It would be nothing to us 
never to see each other till that blessed day. 
Love would be a poor and paltry thing indeed 
if it should die without meetings and talks. 
Of course to continue to see each other in 
opposition to your father’s wishes would be im¬ 
possible misery for you and him. Our love, 
which is the high and holy love, is capable of 
any strain. No, since there’s no help, promise 
your father not to see me again till you are 
twenty-one, and tell him that I shall make no 
effort to see you either. Don’t bind yourself 
never to write to me: it might be an absolute 
necessity that we should communicate: but 
assure him there will be no regular correspon¬ 
dence. There, I know how brave you are, Cres¬ 
sida. But there is nothing to fear: it is the 
manifest Will of God that we should marry: 
now we walk side by side on different paths: if 
we never swerve from our duty these paths will 
meet at the end of five and a half years. And 
now come, let us start back for your home. 
Think how anxious your father will be at your 
long absence.” 

We went by train to Moorgate Street, and 

[ 68 ] 


CRESSIDA 


I walked with her along the Whitechapel Road 
as far as the street which led to her father’s 
rectory. I stood and watched the slim grace¬ 
ful figure, angelic in its exquisite purity, hurry¬ 
ing down the gloomy, grimy street; the faint 
sunbeams playing on her red-gold hair, as I had 
there seen the light of another world on our 
first meeting. I was only to see her twice more 
in my life. Alas! for the pity of it! Alas! 
for the tragedy of it! The convenient phrase, 
so often a cant phrase, was about to rise to 
my lips: the judgments of God are past finding 
out. But here it was a case of fault, and 
wicked fault on my part, and the judgment of 
God was most comprehensible and just. 


[ 69 ] 


CHAPTER III 


ANXIETY 

What I have told you just now of my love, 
bald and prosaic as is the vesture, will strike 
many people as the immature vapourings and 
yearnings of youthful fancy. I am an old man 
now, and looking back to that time I can see 
no fancy in it, but only exalted fact. The 
love I had at eighteen I approve in the evening 
of life with all the strength of my soul. What 
I call the high and holy love comes only to 
extreme youth: if embraced then, no unlawful 
love will ever enter the sanctuary. Love is one 
of the great bulwarks of religion. Preachers 
do not champion it enough. Love alone can 
make a truly religious life in the world possible. 
The man who truly loves is as reasonably safe 
to go straight as it is given to a man to be 
in this valley of tears. Young love is the 
sanctification, young marriage the salvation, 
of generous youth that would keep intact the 
Christian ideal of daily life: either that, or 
the religious state: there is no other way. The 
[70] 


ANXIETY 


age limit has often been a terrible weapon for 
evil in the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous 
elders, whose one thought is material advantage. 
Whom God hath j oined let no man put asunder: 
and equally whom God hath elected to be j oined 
let no man keep asunder. And if any man 
say that this is just as young and immature 
as what I held at eighteen, I can only answer— 
Blessed be God Who has preserved the fervour 
and faith of youth in a life that for long 
suffered eclipse and tribulations without end, 
multas et malas , as you shall presently hear. 

* % * * # 

Two years passed quickly. Loyal to our 
compact I saw nothing of Cressida, nor had 
we found it necessary to exchange a single 
letter. From the day that I first saw her I 
began to rise rapidly at the bank. I was now 
twenty. My salary was £200 a year; I might 
reasonably hope that it would be £300 next 
year. I got known at other banks and soon 
saw that I could get better pay elsewhere. But 
no indication that I was to change came from 
the one source which more than ever I continued 
to keep before me. Besides, I felt sure of my 
partnership, and, at that time at all events, I 
liked much better the idea of being a junior 
[71] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


partner in Casauban’s than of being manager 
of a large joint stock concern. This is a truth¬ 
ful history, and I may as well say that without 
doubt I had a touch of natural genius for 
finance. I had dropped a casual suggestion 
to a senior clerk for the investment of money 
at a time of panic when the most level heads 
went astray in judgment. He snubbed me as 
I deserved, but reported the suggestion to old 
Casauban as coming from me. It was acted 
upon, and proved entirely successful. The 
money about to be invested in securities which 
proved a total loss, was saved. This got me 
considerable kudos , and from that time on I 
was consulted now and then, half in jest, half 
in earnest, about investments. It also earned 
me the dislike and ill-will of the youngest 
partner, Mr. Jarrett, which I was to feel 
seriously later on. 

It was about this time that young Paul 
Casauban came into the bank, as you have told 
in your book. He took to me at once, rather 
too eagerly. He used to pour out to me about 
his ideals and ever-changing nebulous religious 
views. I had never been intimate before with 
a soul living in the land of confusion. It was 
pathetic to me in the extreme, and I found 
myself greatly drawn to him. I spoke to him 
[72] 


ANXIETY 


of the Order and Will of God, but he seemed 
quite incapable of understanding. At length 
all his fine notions failed him and turned to 
Dead Sea fruit. I saw that the pit was open¬ 
ing to receive him and held his hand tightly. 
But he slipped from me and fell into the dark, 
eddying whirlpool of London’s vice. Not for 
long, and perhaps I had something to do in 
drawing him out and leading him into God’s 
Order. I should like to think so. He has been 
magnificent as a Catholic, and is now so far 
above me that I can hardly understand him. 

One thing lay heavy on my conscience, so 
that I may say that love brought me the first 
moral disquiet of my life. I had not thought 
of it at my last crowded meeting with Cressida, 
but I thought of it immediately after. No 
decision had been come to, no arrangements 
made, about religion. She had so luminously 
the anima naturaliter Catholica , that I felt sure 
the baptism of desire would last through the 
period of waiting. But that was sentimental¬ 
ity, and I am matter-of-fact. By temperament 
too, I hope, by conviction certainly, I was 
absolutely straight. I could see straight and 
walk straight. The straight thing was to 
write and tell Cressida to become a Catholic 
then and there, and she would have done this, 
[73] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

just as she would have married me, in spite 
of a legion of fathers. It would have meant 
five and a half years of acute torture for her: 
daily to hurt the father she so loved, daily 
to suffer his reproaches—for though a good 
man he was fanatical where Catholics were 
concerned—I kept turning away from the 
picture which daily forced itself on my vision. 
If I had seen Cressida again, I am sure principle 
would have re-asserted itself and I should have 
said: to wait, to live outside in confusion after 
the call to enter l’Ordre de Dieu, is craven, is 
sinful: he who considers father or mother more 
than Me is not worthy of Me. But I had 
promised not to see her again, and had sent my 
pledge to her father that I would make no at¬ 
tempt to do so. To write: I was sure of myself 
speaking, but if I wrote should I not only per¬ 
plex, confuse, afflict, and would not the letter 
almost certainly never reach her hands? Per¬ 
plexity troubled my spirit, and for the first time 
in my life I felt a symptom of weakness and 
helplessness. I flinched for a second before 
clear principle, and declined for a moment from 
the straight thing. And then—oh greatest of 
all man’s delusions, oh fatal and most common 
of snares—I soothed my conscience by leaving 
it to God, when He had in reality left it to me. 

[74] 


ANXIETY 


All the misery and tragedy of my life came from 
this one act of faithlessness. But the fault was 
mine. I had the knowledge. I had the grace. 
I knew what to do, and I had the strength to do 
it. And yet I did not act. Nothing is left 
me at the bar of God’s judgment seat but to put 
in a plea of guilty. My lapse no doubt pro¬ 
ceeded from the human side of my love for Cres- 
sida: she was a saint and could suffer: she was a 
heroine and would be brave: but she was also 
a dear, delightful, sweet, enchanting English 
girl, and I turned my face away with a shudder 
from her martyrdom. 

***** 

It was seven o’clock on a glorious May eve¬ 
ning. I was walking along Bishopsgate Street 
on my way home, and thinking it was just such 
an evening when I met Cressida two years be¬ 
fore, and I was saying Cressida, Cressida, over 
and over again to myself, when lo and behold! 
there she was, coming straight towards me. I 
was too young before to give a thought to 
what she wore, but that day I noticed that she 
was wearing a Lincoln green dress and jacket 
trimmed with a border of sable, and that it was 
extraordinarily becoming. She was a woman 
now, more heavenly beautiful than ever. If our 
[75] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

love had been running true, there should have 
been a light about her head, however faint. But 
I saw no trace. We stood stock still. She was 
the first to speak. 

“Chris,” she said, “I am glad that we have met. 
I must speak to you.” We had stopped outside 
the gates of St. Helen’s Place, old Capulet’s 
orchard, the spot of all others in the world that 
held the dearest memories for me. “Come in 
here,” she went on; “we can be more quiet here.” 

“Cressida,” I answered reproachfully, “we 
are under a bond not to meet and talk.” 

She smiled as if happy in my sense of honour. 
“I know, I know. I might have written to you. 
I should have written to you soon. But it is 
better that we should talk. I will confess to 
father at once that we have met and talked. He 
will approve. Let that satisfy your conscience.” 

I followed her into St. Helen’s Place, but not 
satisfied. Heavens, should I after all find as I 
grew older and life more complicated, that I 
should not always be able to run straight. I 
refused to believe it. So long as I was true to 
my Faith and conscientiously followed every 
clear manifestation of God’s Will, I should al¬ 
ways keep on that joyful straight road where I 
had hitherto found nothing but sheer happiness. 
My chief fault, my one real weakness, had been 
[76] 


ANXIETY 


to shrink from inflicting upon Cressida the full 
consequences of a bitter duty. I could remedy 
that now. I would insist that she immediately 
become a Catholic, such having been her own 
manifest desire. Perhaps our meeting after all 
was by Divine ordinance. “Chris,” she resumed, 
“my heart is so full. I must hear myself tell 
you how I love you, oh, so much more than on 
that happy evening when we met two years 
before. Love comes but once in life: that I 
see and know: and could never change into 
love for anybody else however long I lived. It 
might perhaps give way to a love higher than 
itself-” 

“No, Cressida,” I interrupted emphatically, 
“that is impossible. There is, in a sense, a 
higher kind of love than ours I know, the love 
of man or woman for God in the religious state. 
That is a distinct call, and it usually comes 
only to people who have never known the love of 
man and woman. These are the two great loves 
that make up all Christian love upon earth. 
One can hardly say that one is higher than the 
other. That to which God has called a man is 
the highest for him, and our love is the only 
high, pure, and possible love for us, because 
without any figure of speech God has chosen us 
for each other. If you or I ever had the 
[77] 



CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


thought of becoming monk or nun, it would be 
a sacrilege ending in the ruin of our lives. Now, 
since we have met, I would like to say a word 
about religion-” 

“It was about religion that I wanted to talk 
to you,” she interrupted. “Chris,” she resumed, 
“when I met you two years ago, I was just be¬ 
ginning to help father in his good works, but I 
seemed to know nothing about his religion, for I 
had only just begun life at home. I knew what 
it was to be a Christian, but I did not know 
what it was to be a Catholic. Father has talked 
to me a lot, and made me read many books. I 
have learnt that I am a Catholic. I believe it 
with all my heart and soul and strength, and I 
am very happy in the thought. And all the 
more, because as we are both Catholics, there is 
no change to make when we marry.” 

I was terribly agitated. Was my weakness, 
my culpable wickedness after all going to spring 
its terrible consequences on me? “Dear Cres- 
sida,” I said, very quietly, “when we last parted 
if I had asked you there and then to see a priest 
and be received into the Church, you would have 
had faith in me and agreed, would you not? 
You would in consequence have had to endure five 
and a half years suffering by your father’s side 
in a position so cruel that the imagination re- 
[78] 



ANXIETY 


fuses to picture it. But you would have endured 
it like the heroine you are, and God’s grace 
would have been abounding. ’Tis I who have 
been the coward, false to all I know that makes 
for your blessedness. And because I did not 
give you the substance, I see that ever since I 
left you in your desolation you have been crav¬ 
ing for the true religion, and have eagerly seized 
upon what seems to you to be such. But there 
is only one Catholicism, and if you are a 
Catholic then I am not. And in this division 
our love would simply make shipwreck and 
founder. Let me implore you, Cressida, let me 
conjure you: help me to repair my error: come 
with me now to a church close by here: take the 
first step necessary, and from that you will not 
go back. Then go home and tell your father: 
it will be a hard, long, and bitter struggle, but 
we shall both come out of the fire unsullied and 
without a reproach on our conscience.” 

She was deeply moved and agitated, and 
could not speak at first. “Dear Chris,” she said 
at length, “I believed what father taught me, 
believed it, loved it, and I have been practising it 
in his beautiful church and in his gloomy slums. 
I cannot in honesty change in a moment. 
Whereas two years ago I had nothing, to-day I 
have something. But I seem to see what you 
179] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


mean: I will speak to father at once: and trust 
me, dear, I will do what is right cost what it 
may—even to him!” 

“Cressida,” I answered, now more calm and 
composed, “our love, our marriage, is ordained 
by God’s Will. That you be a Catholic is 
essential to it, and the day I met you I could 
safely say that God would bring about the 
necessary change in you, for this was essential 
to His scheme. But to-day I am conscious of 
not having done what I could to contribute to 
the Divine plan. Grave is my responsibility, 
and you alone can help me to undo the evil I 
have done. If ever anything presents itself to 
you as higher, nobler, better, purer, than your 
love for me and mine for you, think of it as 
Satanic. I long to see you safe from the danger 
of deception. Cressida, dear heart, take the 
bold and straight step at once. Then will our 
love be kept on its first exalted level, then can 
we pluckily await with a good conscience the 
day that you are twenty-one.” 

She was crying gently. I was only to see her 
once more in this life, and then, too, with the 
tears streaming down her face, which by that 
time had become transfigured with a rare sanc¬ 
tity. We parted at the gates of St. Helen’s 
Place, and I watched her disappear down 
[ 80 ] 


ANXIETY 


Bishopsgate, going eastwards towards her 
father’s rectory, certain in my own mind that 
now she was safe, and that by my words I had 
undone the mischief of my former weakness. 

* * * * * 

Two months passed. A letter from Cressida 
came for me addressed to the bank. It bore the 
postmark of a small Yorkshire seaside place of 
which I had heard. She told me that her father 
had been ailing for a long while, that he had 
given up his living and work in the East End, 
and had come to this quiet place for rest, where 
he would also act as chaplain and spiritual 
director to a community of contemplative 
Anglican nuns. She said she loved me, and 
would love me for ever, and how entirely she 
realised what I had said, that nothing could ever 
be higher to her in this world, nor any state 
more religious, than our high and purifying 
love. And she added that I should find her 
ready and waiting for me on her twenty-first 
birthday. Of religion she only said that I might 
be sure she would do what was right. 

I drew what comfort I could from this letter. 
But it was only too evident to me that her 
father had been alarmed by the influence on her 
of our chance meeting, and that he had deter- 
[ 81 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


mined to put her out of the reach of danger by 
leaving London. A gnawing anxiety began to 
invade my heart. I put it from me as traitor¬ 
ous to Cressida. Three and a half years were 
still to run before our marriage, but she had 
told me that I should find her ready on the day; 
I therefore resumed my former life of hard work 
with good hope and undiminished energy. 


[ 82 ] 


CHAPTER IV 


DESPAIR 

I fear that I am wearying you with all these 
details, and the repetition of argument that 
must be so familiar to you. But I will hurry 
over the three years of my waiting. I was 
twenty-four. Great had been my success in the 
bank. I was high up, and had a salary of £600 
a year. The time was approaching when Cres- 
sida would be free in law to marry. I had not 
changed in any way. My life was simple and 
natural. I could still be called good. It is 
almost necessary that you should know that I 
was unconscious of ever having committed a 
mortal sin in my life. I still loved amusement 
and was fond of the theatre. But I was still 
content with the Pit, for I was saving hard for 
Cressida’s sake. Athletics I had dropped but 
I got a bit of a name as a tennis player in the 
early days. I was also a lieutenant in the 
Artists’ Volunteers, having begun in the ranks. 

My father had died in the meantime. My 
sister Betty had become a Discalced Carmelite 
[83] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

nun, in Religion Sister Mary Evangelista of the 
Child Jesus. With St. Gideon as the family 
protector we were naturally partial to the Order 
of Mount Carmel. Betty was a lovely, brilliant 
girl, who shone conspicuously in such society as 
she got. She went to her espousals with the glee 
of a London society girl making a brilliant love 
match. It was she who said on the Kreuzberg 
at Bonn long ago: “We shall see right inside 
heaven soon.” And now, indeed, she does see 
right inside, for she has been there since she was 
twenty-seven. There was some public talk about 
her sanctity after death, and a few beautiful 
letters of hers to a girl friend appeared in an ob¬ 
scure magazine. It was said, too, that shimmer¬ 
ing lights and tongues of flame had been seen by 
a watching lay-sister as the body lay in her 
narrow cell. But all such talk has long since 
ceased. If the lives of all the holy people who 
had lived were to be written, the world could 
not contain them. There is some comfort in the 
reflection. Dear girl, she did not abandon me 
when the eclipse came, but wrote me half a 
dozen letters. It was deadly dark where I was, 
and I did not look at them until I came out into 
the light of day again. My sister Gertrude, 
whom everybody thought was going to be the 
nun of the family, married Gloucester Herald, a 
[84] 


DESPAIR 


good enough sort, but over solemn. To her my 
father left all his books, papers, MSS., draw¬ 
ings, etc. Gloucester was eminently fitted to put 
them to the best use. In the inventory of the 
“estate* there were some sixty unsold copies of 
St, Gideon: Crusader and Hermit . (One hun¬ 
dred and fifty copies had been printed. The 
book was richly illustrated and handsomely 
bound. Published price: three guineas.) Of 
money there was nothing for anybody. I moved 
into a lodging in Lamb’s Conduit Street, just 
a single bedroom, for again I was saving hard 
for my golden marriage day. Besides, what 
need had I of a sitting-room, who had no taste 
for books or indoor pastimes. The day’s work 
was hard and often long: whether I came home 
from over-time, or drill, or the theatre, a bed 
was all I needed. Even from my father’s house 
in Woburn Place, I always walked to the city 
and back. I was absolutely frugal and tem¬ 
perate in eating and drinking, and did not 
smoke more than an ounce of tobacco a week. 

As regards religion, I went to confession and 
communion once a week. Unless prevented by 
expeditions up the river or volunteer outings, I 
always went to High Mass on Sundays for the 
sake of the sermon. I also enjoyed the after¬ 
noon preaching at Farm Street where I learned 
[85] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


no end of good and useful things. Ever since I 
was twenty-one I observed all fast days and the 
entire fast of Lent. I was tough and wiry, and 
this meant no difficulty or self-denial to me. My 
prayers were short enough, and it was chiefly 
a case of “saying” prayers. I knew there was 
something much higher, “mental” prayer: only 
not for me. I always liked priests and sought 
their society. I used to help our priest with 
his evening classes two or three times a week, 
and was more especially useful in the gymnasium 
he started for boys. I could act, sing, recite, 
mimic, vamp at the piano, and strum on a 
banjo, and was in great request among the 
clergy for penny readings and amateur theatri¬ 
cals. You will see from all this what a full and 
happy life I had, and all in God’s Order. And 
all the time, too, there was the great love to 
cheer me and keep me straight, and the song of 
Cressida, Cressida, rang melodiously within, 
whether I was working or playing. 

* * * * * 

It was nearing the 13th, St. Lucy’s day, 
when Cressida would be twenty-one. In fact it 
was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 
my lucky day, and I had been up early in the 
morning at Farm Street. I was buoyantly 
[ 86 ] 


DESPAIR 


happy, even beyond my wont. I can realise 
better now how extraordinarily good God had 
been to me in giving me so early, from child¬ 
hood in fact, complete contentment and satis¬ 
faction in that manner of life which I can only 
call His service. Perhaps I took too material 
a view of it: perhaps I had an unjustifiable 
tendency then to shy at the word spiritual or 
mystic: the whole thing—I mean His service— 
seemed to me so eminently commonsense. But 
the Faith I held exacted virtue, and I tried to be 
good. The knowledge I had showed me what 
God’s Will was and I tried to do it. This had 
been my happy state since boyhood, and now by 
Heaven’s mercy there had been added to it the 
motive above all others that should keep my feet 
from falling,—the love of the woman chosen for 
me in the Divine plan, a great love, an unspotted 
love, a love, which seeing that it proceeded from 
above, also passed all understanding. 

That day the five o’clock post brought me a 
letter to the bank. I recognised Cressida’s hand, 
and put it in my breast pocket. I would read 
the great news in the peace of my lodging. 
How nobly, she had helped me to keep our pact: 
we had not met once, we had not once corre¬ 
sponded. To me this had been easy, perhaps not 
so easy to her, a woman. We were already in 
[87] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Advent, and could not therefore by the Church’s 
law be married till after the Epiphany. So 
there would be plenty of time to arrange every¬ 
thing. Quickly I finished my work and started 
to walk home. It was dark already: a thick 
yellow fog hung over the city, a cold drizzle was 
falling. But I was in paradise, and my song of 
Cressida, Cressida, had never sounded so j oyful. 
I am not emotional or sentimental as you know, 
but the good news in her letter which lay over 
my heart seemed to infiltrate into my soul and 
set it ablaze with joy. And now I am in my 
solitary room. I draw up the table before the 
fire. I bring out the letter, open it. There is a 
printed address at the top, which causes me a 
cold shiver of anxiety. 


St. Agatha's Convent, 

Hale ham-o n-Sea. 

December 7th. 

I do not fear for you; you are good, through and 
through and through. How blind I was when first I 
met you—about religion I mean. I have learnt the 
whole Catholic faith now, and have embraced it 
ardently. Our love was great and pure, but I have 
been called by an irresistible manifestation of that 
Will of God which you love so, to a love much greater 
and higher, the love of our Lord Jesus Christ Whose 
bride I become on the feast of St. Lucy. You will 
feel this for a moment as a blow, but I, who know your 
deep, true goodness, your deep religious feeling, believe 
[ 88 ] 


DESPAIR 


that you are called to the same life and will soon follow 
my footsteps. I did not write to you before to tell 
you of this, because I could not be sure of myself. I 
could not believe that I, of all girls, could have been 
called to so exalted a state. Then, too, it was anguish 
excruciating to tear you out of my heart. I think only 
the thought that you were intended for this blessed 
life gave me the strength to do it. Perhaps you will 
hate me for a moment. I do not think so. Nor will 
the step I have taken cause you to turn aside for an 
instant from the strait way which you have walked so 
nobly. I know you to be a tower of great strength. 
Your great, good, deep, true sense penetrated all things 
so wonderfully and always looked up so high, high, 
that I know you will very soon be as convinced as I am 
that this is the Will of God which we must follow or die. 

Cressida. 

It was a long time before I could get the 
letter read in full. I broke off in the middle of 
sentences, began again towards the end, went 
back again to the beginning. There was actual, 
physical darkness all round me. Memory began 
to go and the past grew dim. I believe, at first, 
that I did not quite realise that she was writing 
from an Anglican convent. I was certainly 
quite beyond realising that what happened was 
my fault entirely, that had I done the straight 
thing, and let her do the brave thing, when she 
was a girl of sixteen, she would have suffered 
torments, yes, but the day of a radiant deliver¬ 
ance would have been at hand. All I realised 
[89] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

was that mj life was blasted and might as well 
end. I remember shouting out loud, and I re¬ 
member that I, who had never cried in my life, 
not as a child, not as new schoolboy, threw my¬ 
self on the table and sobbed and wept aloud in 
hot, rebellious anger. I remember looking up a 
moment and seeing the kind, anxious face of my 
landlady peeping through the half-open door: 
I pulled myself together, and the door was softly 
shut. Then I stood up and blasphemed and 
cursed all that I had ever believed and held dear. 
A fairy-tale God’s Order, a dream God’s Will, 
a dream Holy Faith and Holy Sacrament, a 
dream the pure love of man for the chosen 
woman, and goodness, with its intolerable war¬ 
fare, the most pestilential dream of them all! 
The darkness around me seemed to grow dense. 
I would make an end of all these evil dreams and 
the mad folly of a life of sacrifice. How? I 
had no revolver. There was nothing for it but 
the river. Come, I will go. In half an hour the 
cursed nightmare will be over. But stay—I am 
a practical man, boastful, even, of his common- 
sense. Is this quite fair to life? What do I 
know of life but the puerile imaginations in 
which I have been stifling life? There is another 
life, the life offered by the world, the jolly life of 
vice and pleasure which I had reprobated. The 
[90] 


DESPAIR 


world spoke of this life as the acme of happi¬ 
ness. My own notion of life had snapped and 
broken in my hand, leaving nothing but loath¬ 
some dust and ashes. Why be such a fool as to 
take life before trying the life of most of the men 
I had come across ? I have some money; I can 
easily make more. If this life, too, fails me, 
then I can make an end of all things. Right: 
I’ll try it. ... A dark cloud rose up ex in¬ 
ferno mferiori , and the light of my life suffered 
a total eclipse. I rushed out into the black 
whirlpool of London’s vice that night with the 
dismal howl of “Mavourez love doth end in 
shame,” ringing in my ears, and for a period 
afterwards I was reckoned one of this nether 
world’s champions, until a pitiful God drove 
me into the blind-alley of a prison and there 
once more folded me in His everlasting arms. 


[ 91 ] 


CHAPTER V 


ECLIPSE 

In my altered life the work was still my chief 
concern. Perhaps I am thorough by tempera¬ 
ment. At all events, I was thoroughly vicious. 
But not once was I ever late for business. My 
health and spirits suffered, but my work was as 
well or better done than ever. I moved from 
my one room in Lamb’s Conduit Street and took 
a first floor in York Street, St. James’s Square. 
Always reasonably particular about my dress, I 
now began to give the greatest care to my ap¬ 
pearance, and soon was spoken of as the best- 
dressed man in the city. “I believe Mavourez is 
in love!” said the principal confidential clerk, 
laughing. I cursed him so vehemently, I 
stretched out my hands towards him so fiercely, 
that he turned white with fear. I saw the look 
of alarm and surprise in the faces of others, 
and quickly checked myself and apologised. I 
caught the whisper of a voice in a lull saying: 
“More like crossed in love!” By dint of curses 
I managed to control myself. The habit of 
[92] 


ECLIPSE 


cursing was growing on me. I was getting 
dangerous to myself, and saw that I should 
need to use the greatest self-restraint. Old 
Casauban was dead; Paul Casauban was by 
this time out of the bank: new partners had come 
into it: Jarrett had bought a considerable 
share, and though not the senior partner, was 
now the guiding spirit of the bank. The name 
of the bank was now changed to Blount, Jarrett 
and Blounts. On the whole, as I was so abso¬ 
lutely regular at work,—working late, too, 
most days,—I don’t think the change in my life 
was much noticed except by Jarrett. I could 
see his little ferret eyes watching, watching, for 
the opportunity that he saw might come some 
day now, to be rid of my troublesome, success¬ 
ful presence. Here most of all did I require 
self-restraint. I had a big roaring devil of 
physical force in me, and when I saw the ferret 
eyes trying to bore into my secret, I could have 
leapt on him and pitched him round the office. 
But such feelings would not do. Above all 
things, I needed the bank. Without the bank 
I should have no work, without work no money, 
and without money no wild nights. I was in¬ 
toxicated with this new life, but could only 
live it at high pressure. Wild and mad at 
night; grave, sober, judicious, hard-working by 
[93] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


day—the strain was terrible. Sometimes I 
remembered the Faith that once was in me, 
and then I believed, and like the devil I was, 
I trembled. But such moments were rare and 
passed altogether. After a year I was hardened 
in vice, and becoming more truly worldly, de¬ 
veloped greater moderation and prudence. But 
the career of vice went on steadily. Jarrett 
watched, and watched, but I was strong in the 
approval of the other partners, who knew my 
worth as a bank clerk. 

I was wildly prodigal, and my savings of 
£700 melted in the first year. The Exchange 
and Credit people offered me £1,000 a year to 
go over to them. I made no secret of this, and 
my salary was raised to £800. I preferred less 
money and the old place with a chance of a 
partnership. But I was always in want of money. 
I borrowed £200 at exorbitant interest from a 
moneylender. The day of payment came, and I 
could not meet his bill. He refused to renew, 
and threatened to expose me. I got one day’s 
extra grace from him. Two courses were open 
to me. The bottomless depth presented itself 
first: my position of great trust enabled me to 
touch the bank’s money: with that I could 
speculate on the Exchange with the certainty 
almost of making, only the money must be re- 
[94] 


ECLIPSE 


placed within a week to prevent discovery. That 
would not do, it was risky: besides, it was the 
bottomless depth, the end to any sort or kind 
of life. Then I might borrow from Casauban. 
He would certainly not refuse. I had not seen 
him since the change in my life. He had written 
two or three times, asking me to dine alone with 
him in Manchester Square. His mere existence 
pinched my conscience. He would talk of the 
past. He would assume that I was still run¬ 
ning straight. Certainly I could not go, and, 
like a fool, I did not even answer his letters. I 
was angry at the thought of his existence. But 
now the bitter pill must be swallowed. Good 
Heaven! supposing he was away, abroad, in 
Italy, where he often went. I took a hansom 
and drove at once to Manchester Square. 

Was he in? I asked eagerly. Yes, he was in. 
Thank God for that. I was shown into the big 
room at the back, so wonderful for its books. 
The brown eyes searched mine anxiously. I 
found him changed; awkward and shy. He was 
beginning to find out that he was not in his 
element, just as you have described in your 
book, but was still far from learning what 
that element was. He had no small talk for me 
now, nor I for him. I blurted out that I was in 
a money difficulty, and asked could he lend me 
[95] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


£200 for three months. “Why, of course,” he 
answered readily. The worst remained for me 
to say. He still banked with us. I wanted 
notes, and not a cheque which the ferret eyes of 
Jarrett would gloat over, seeking to probe my 
mystery. Casauban produced a cheque book 
and began to write. The words would not come 
across my lips: I was a devil, but the rags of a 
gentleman’s feeling still clung to me. I could 
not say: give me notes. Decidedly I must be¬ 
come more of a cad if I am to support my 
present life. Almost at once he stopped writ¬ 
ing, went across the room to a safe, and re¬ 
turned with £200 in notes. His own fine feelings 
had divined that I would not like his cheque 
in my favour to be seen at the bank. I cursed 
within me blindly. 

“Are you sure that’s enough?” he asked. 

“Quite, quite, thanks awfully.” 

“Come back to me if ever you get in a dif¬ 
ficulty again, won’t you ? He wished me to speak. 
I would not. He wished to speak himself. He 
could not. I saw the longing in his eyes. They 
seemed to say: you, Chris Mavourez, once my 
rock and mainstay, have got into the devil’s 
whirlpool. How, I wonder? You saved me, let 
me save you. But he could not utter a word, 
could no longer look at me straight for pity’s 
[96] 


ECLIPSE 


sake. I seemed to feel the flame of prayer leap¬ 
ing up within him for my soul’s weal. I may 
have cursed. It was a horrible experience. 
Never again, never again: let black ruin come 
rather than that I should ever again face him 
and ask for money. 

The three months were nearly past, and I saw 
no prospect of paying him. I must either pay 
him, or shoot myself. I knew he would have 
given me the money cheerfully. But I had not 
advanced far enough in the transformation into 
cad. I would rather shoot myself, far, than 
take a gift of money from him to chuck into the 
filthy melting pot, where my own money went. 
I could not go to the moneylender again, for I 
had already been and borrowed £200. There 
was nothing for it, I must plunge into the 
bottomless depth and touch the bank’s money. 
If that resource fails, then there is only death. 
I took £300 of the bank’s money and specu¬ 
lated on the Stock Exchange. I had special 
information given me, reasoned the thing out 
carefully, and netted about £600. I could 
not face Casauban, but sent him the £200 by 
letter. Once more I was saved. I had recom¬ 
mended the same investment to the bank. My 
suggestion was adopted, and over £10,000 was 
made. The partners voted me a bonus of £300. 

[ 97 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


I was free from money difficulties for six 
months, and spent all the more wildly. 

But at the beginning of the third year of this 
awful life I was again in difficulties. This time 
I did not hesitate to use the bank’s money. I 
speculated very carefully, always with success. 
Once I failed. It was a horrible moment. £300 
had to be replaced in two days’ time. Curse! 
Curse! The moneylender whom I knew had 
failed. I tried two others. They wanted a 
week for inquiries. It was useless to try a third. 
Curse! Curse! There was nothing for it but to 
fly to Manchester Square. It was horrible, 
horrible. He opened his safe and gave me £300 
in notes. Oh, how he longed to open his heart, 
too. I feared that above all things. He was 
struggling for words. 

“Good-night!” I said: “a thousand thanks, a 
thousand thanks !” I made towards the door of 
the library in haste. 

“Chris!” he called after me. Oh, horror! 
There were tears in his eyes, and deep compas¬ 
sion, and loving-kindness. “One word, only one 
word!” There was a sob in his voice, and angry 
curses in my heart. I feared and dreaded his 
one word, and opened the door into the hall. He 
followed me to the front door. There was no 
further attempt on his part to say the one word. 

[ 98 ] 


ECLIPSE 


He just said quietly in an undertone, “Come to 
me whenever you are in a difficulty. Don’t be 
downhearted.” He would have liked to say, 
“God bless you,” but couldn’t, or perhaps 
divined that any expressions of the kind might 
have maddened me. And then I had the horrid 
feeling that the fires of prayer deep down within 
him had kindled into a glowing furnace. I fled 
from him in something like terror, with curses 
on my lips. 

Three years of this awful life had passed. 
After that last interview with Casauban, I dis¬ 
tinctly changed for a while and led a quieter 
life. I needed rest, too, for the strain of keeping 
regular at work under such horrible circum¬ 
stances told more and more upon me. I went 
away by myself for a fortnight’s holiday on the 
Dorset coast. I could not stand three days of 
it. Something tugged at my heartstrings; my 
memory, now at rest, went back to the straight, 
happy, confident days of the past. Then, too, 
—as with my great patron St. Augustine, 1 so 
with me, Continence, in her chase dignity, serene 
and cheerful, rose up before me and beckoned, 
rose up and showed me, not a multitude of good 
examples as she had shown to the great Saint, 
but my own happy life when I was her cavalier, 
1 Confessions, viii. n. 


[ 99 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


when I gave the best years of my life to doing 
battle for her crown. Curse it all! This was 
intolerable. I must get back to crowds again. 
I went to Newhaven, and over to Paris, where I 
once more suffered a total eclipse. 

Too long, perhaps, have I dwelt upon the 
dark years of this sordid life, and yet perhaps 
I should have been more particular so that you 
might more fully realise the depths to which I 
had sunk. But if you will reflect on the life I 
had led for twenty-four years, you will under¬ 
stand that it could not be thoroughly sub¬ 
merged and stifled except in the mire of the 
deep, where there is no foothold. After my re¬ 
turn from Paris, I again began to get into 
money difficulties. My salary was now £1,000 a 
year, and there was only one man higher than 
myself in the bank. I considered my partnership 
in sight: either that or I would take the Ex¬ 
change and Credit people’s offer of £2,000 a year 
as their general manager. I now borrowed from 
an East End moneylender, helped myself, paid 
back, speculated, won, speculated, lost, helped 
myself again, speculated again, lost. A dread¬ 
ful day had come. £600 had to be replaced in 
two days’ time. The time had come to put an 
end to this dog’s life. There was not a ray of 
hope anywhere. Yes, Casauban. But no; 
[JOO] 


ECLIPSE 


nothing, nothing, should induce me to go near 
him again. I took another £200. It was a 
risky speculation, and it did not come off. £800 
must be found by to-morrow. If I am to die, 
it may as well be for much as little. The bank 
have made quite enough out of me in their day. 
One more try. My business deals were always 
based on sound calculations. I knew of nothing 
safe on the market to-day. I was reduced to the 
gambler’s resource. I took another £400; 
plunged—and lost! £1,200 must be found by 
to-morrow morning. Now what shall I do? 
Death? I always carried a revolver in those 
years. Why die? Is not my life very jolly? 
If I alter methods a bit, I can have quite a good 
time without all these anxieties. And then I 
heard Casauban’s low earnest voice with its ap¬ 
pealing tones: Come to me whenever you are in 
a difficulty. That decided it. I would go. Why 
the devil shouldn’t I? I would adopt different 
tactics. I would speak this time, and make a 
clean breast of it. I would alter the pace at 
which I was going. There should be no more 
borrowings, peculations, speculations. I would 
take my pleasures quietly, soberly. I would be 
vicious decently. Moreover, I would accept the 
Exchange and Credit offer of £2,000, and be 
able to pay Casauban back within a year or two. 

[ 101 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Yes, I would go up to Manchester Square as 
soon as the day’s work was through. It was 
either that, Portland, or death. 

The five o’clock post brought me a letter. I 
could not suppress a loud cry. The chief 
cashier, and two or three clerks came running 
up, followed by Mr. Jarrett. I was seized by an 
uncontrollable shivering fit. “You are ill, Mav- 
ourez,” said Mr. Jarrett, eyeing me through 
and through. “You had better jump into a 
hansom and get home at once. Take care of 
yourself. Of course we shan’t expect you 
to-morrow. Don’t think of coming back until 
you’re all right. I’ve noticed you haven’t been 
the thing lately.” Curse the little beast! I 
shall soon have done with him. 

Ill I certainly was. I jumped into a hansom. 
York Street, St. James’s Square. I would go 
home first and read the letter, then round to 
Manchester Square. No, he was usually out for 
a stroll between six and seven. I would dine by 
myself at the Cafe Royal, and then go on to him. 
The letter! The letter! what did it mean after 
these four years of hell? Why hell? I’ve been 
having a very good time, surely. I had put 
the letter in my breast pocket as I had done four 
years ago: this time it communicated a name¬ 
less anxiety to my soul. Something, I felt, was 
[ 102 ] 


ECLIPSE 


going to happen, nothing good, but my present 
life was coming to an end. Suddenly I re¬ 
membered that to-morrow was the 8th of De¬ 
cember (my lucky day!), the very day on which 
I had received the news, years ago it seemed, 
that Cressida had fallen like a lodestar from the 
heavens. Cressida! I had managed wonder¬ 
fully in these years to keep that name from my 
foul lips, that heavenly vision from my impure 
heart. The letter! What does it mean? Is she 
in trouble? I will die for her; hut I cannot see 
her. What is the matter with me ? I am shiver¬ 
ing all over. Curse it! My heart is thumping 
against my side. Heart! My heart? What 
heart? I have no heart. A foul and noisome 
drain stagnates there where a clear and cooling 
stream once flowed. My head is splitting. Let 
me see, I am in a hansom, in the Strand. People 
are looking at me strangely. What is the 
matter with my heart? Something is knocking, 
knocking. I remember it at Lyme Regis, when 
I fled before it. It was always a Child. It is a 
Child now. He is wearing an imperial crown 
and mantle. With His sceptre He knocks in¬ 
sistently. “Son of St. Gideon, let me in, let me 
in, that I may reign upon my throne within. 
Let me in.” Now it is another Child, knocking, 
knocking. His face is heavenly sweet. His eyes 
[103] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

laugh. He carries a sheaf of golden corn over 
His left arm, and with His right hand He 
knocks, knocks. “Child of St. Bona, let me in, 
let me in, that I your heart for this my golden 
sheaf may win. Let me in.” I groan in anguish, 
but am there, secured in a hansom cab, and can¬ 
not escape. Yet another Child, and more per¬ 
sistent, this one, than the others. He wears a 
little pale blue tunic, and carries a large broom. 
He is strong and vigorous. He knocks loudly 
with the end of his broom. “Dear Christopher, 
old playmate, let me in, let me in, that together 
we may sweep my temple clean. Let me in.” 
Stuff! what stuff! what sickly stuff for a spark¬ 
ling viveur, for a model man of the world to be 
mumbling under his breath. He would not go 
away. He knocked and knocked. “Why did 
you set me down in full mid-stream? Dear 
Christ-bearer, old comrade, let me in!” I was 
getting maudlin, thinking of the nursery and old 
childish tales. This must stop. I thrust both 
my clenched fists out of the hansom, and broke 
into language which at last drove these insistent 
images away. . . . York Street, at last! 
Thank God! The corner house, you fool. 
Can’t you see! I paid him double because of my 
curses, and quickly let myself into the house. 
The shivering fit was strong upon me. My man, 
[ 104 ] 


ECLIPSE 


Beaton, looked scared, and asked if he should go 
for a doctor. I bundled him out of the room 
and cursed him for another fool. 

Now the letter. I notice for the first time 
that the postmark is London, S.W. Why 
London? What has happened? Has she 
changed to a Convent in London ? I turned the 
envelope over. There was a crest on the back of 
it: a buck at gaze. Whose crest? How absurd! 
Though I had death in my veins, trifles rushed 
into my brain, and I could hear my father’s 
voice in withering scorn denouncing the woman 
or the priest who should use note-paper with a 
crest! A ring at the bell. A knock at my door. 
Curse! Beaton puts his scared face in. “Beg 
pardon, sir. Mr. Casauban to see you, sir.” 
Casauban! Why? Has he divined? Has he 
heard of anything impending? I can’t face 
him here. I am at his mercy here: here there is 
no running away from him. “Tell Mr. Casau¬ 
ban I’m sorry, but I’m very busy. Brought 
home work from the bank. But I want to see 
him particularly, and will call this evening 
after dinner.” Good business. At all events, 
I am sure to find him. That’s disposed of. 

Now the letter! I tore it open. The address, 
Llanymdovery House, 36 St. James’s Square, 
the Vaughans’ town house. Then, good God, 
[105] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


she is here, near me, round the corner not two 
hundred yards away! I begin to read. My 
head is splitting. Lines and letters dance in 
confusion. 

Llanymdovery House, 

36 St. James’s Square, S.W. 

December 7th. 

Chris Dearest, 

It is four years, since mistaking confusion for 
God’s Order I even bound myself to it by a vow. You 
had warned me to beware of any ideal that claimed 
to be purer or more spiritual for me than our own great 
and heaven-sent love. Heart and mind suffered eclipse, 
and I actually thought I was doing something pleasing 
to God by separating from you for ever. Three months 
ago, after four unquiet years, light came to me, benign 
and unmistakable. I left the Convent and became a 
Catholic. Since that I have been living with my old 
grandfather. Sir Timothy Vaughan, at Llanymdovery. 
We only came up to town yesterday. 

How much, oh, how much you have to forgive me. 
But how easy it will be for you to forgive. You are 
full of pity for all creatures, and then so profound and 
discerning. You lived in God’s Order, and it was 
natural to you to know His ordinances with regard to 
us. I know that you still have the same great, big, 
strong, pure heart as when in my miserable weakness 
I left you. You will have known that it was only an 
aberration. I know that you have been waiting for 
my return, constant as you ever were and unchanged, 
knowing that God would enlighten and bring me back, 
and now I come back to you knowing God, one in 
Christ with you as you wished, and to-day your faith 
triumphs: you see for yourself, what you knew before, 
that God has not deceived but only tried—you, me, 

[ 106 ] 


ECLIPSE 


so that we might both be purified and made ready 
for His most holy Sacrament of Matrimony. Oh, come 
for me quickly, Chris, call for me, send for me. My 
new heart is big and full, overflowing with love for 
my noble cavalier. But I could wait and wait all my 
life long for you, just as you have been waiting, waiting, 
for me now. I say this so that you may see that I now 
love as you do, and understand what the great love 
means. 

And now Chris, dear heart,—don’t refuse; do, do, 
comfort me at once by sending me a telegram calling 
me to meet you in old Capulet’s Orchard at five o’clock 
to-morrow. There is no other place in the world so 
sweet to me, and then to-morrow, you told me, is your 
lucky day. We will walk up and down there and tell 
each other all about, just as we did ten years ago. 
You told me that you had seen a light shining round 
my head in that dingy old schoolroom where we were 
betrothed, and I laughed at you. And then you told 
me the piteous story of the loves of Orlando Mavourez 
and Lady Lettice Warham, and I believed you. The 
light was sent to be your comfort, and by it alone 
you would know that the tie that binds us is indis¬ 
soluble. Oh, don’t fail me. Do come. We will drive 
home here afterwards, just as if it were after our first 
meeting, and we were driving to our wedding. Grandad 
is an old darling. He didn’t mind my change a bit. 
He will bless us, and give me away after the Epiphany 
is past. 

Your loving bride, 
Cressida. 

P.S. If I don’t hear I shall know that you have been 
kept by important business at the bank. But we shall 
expect you here in the evening. When shall I ever 
finish all I have to tell you! 

# * * * * 

[ 107 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


I do not well remember what happened to me 
after I had managed to piece this letter to¬ 
gether. There was a time of unconsciousness, I 
know. I came to, thinking of Othello and his 
pitiable want of faith, and I thought of my ow T n 
mad, senseless want of faith in God’s Order. I 
found myself muttering words from Othello, so 
familiar to me from old days. . . . Whip me, ye 
devils, from the possession of this heavenly 
sight! . . . Blow me about in winds! . . . 
Roast me in sulphur! . . . Wash me in steep- 
down gulfs of liquid fire! . . . Oh, Cressida! 
Cressida! dead to me for ever! ... Oh! Oh! 
Oh! . . . When we shall meet at compt, my girl, 
this look of thine will hurl my soul from Heaven, 
and fiends will snatch at it! 

I do not even remember very well what hap¬ 
pened to me in those three or four days. Some¬ 
times I cursed and blasphemed all that I had 
held dear and sacred, just as I had done four 
years before. And then the beacon of faith 
would flare up in my heart, and I would tremble 
like a legion of devils at the thought of the great 
accompt. Beaton seemed to be coming into the 
room every minute, more pale and scared than 
ever, and saying I was ill and would I not like a 
doctor? And then I remember a doctor coming, 
and Beaton constantly giving me medicines. 

[ 108 ] 


ECLIPSE 


Now what to do? I must get away beyond all 
possibility of seeing Cressida again in this world. 
The first thing to do would be to arrange for 
long leave, so that I could get outside London. 
As it is, I am nearly next door to her. But was 
it worth while living? Most assuredly not, but 
faith tugging again at my heart strings warned 
me of the Everlasting and His dread canon 
’gainst self-slaughter. Long fits of unconscious¬ 
ness came over me. I dozed and dreamt. Then 
came to myself, and said it would be Canada or 
South Africa. 

***** 

Again I awoke from a doze and realised 
that it was Tuesday morning. My head was 
splitting. No doubt about it, I was ill. I 
couldn’t possibly go to business. And then I 
remembered vaguely that I had been taken ill in 
the bank, and that they had told me not to 
hurry back. So that would be all right. I was 
lying down on the outside of the bed, fully 
dressed. Could it be possible that I had not 
taken off my clothes since Friday evening? I 
will undress now and get into bed. Perhaps a 
bath would do me good. Beaton put his white 
face in at the door. His lips were trembling. 
“There’s two men down in the ’all wants to see 
[109] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


you, sir!” But they weren’t down in the hall; 
they were outside on the landing behind him, 
and they pushed their way into the room. “Mr. 
Christopher Mavourez,” said one of them, “we 
are police officers, and we hold a warrant for 
your arrest on the charge of embezzling the sum 
of £1,200 from Messrs. Blount, Jarrett and 
Blounts. You must come along with us at 
once.” 

I jumped off the bed, calm and collected, 
headache vanished, pulses normal. In the 
anguish and torment I had suffered, it had 
utterly gone out of my head, utterly. Of 
course, now I remembered: on Friday evening 
I was going round to Casauban to save myself 
by borrowing £1,200; on Saturday morning my 
defalcations at the bank would have been dis¬ 
covered. The hour of Jarrett’s revenge had 
struck. 

One of the men advanced and touched me on 
the shoulder. That completed my arrest. 
“Right!” I said. “I’m ready!” The elder of 
the two men then read the warrant, and added 
pompously that anything I said now might be 
used in evidence against me. 

“All right!” I replied. “You can say that 
here, in the presence of witnesses, I said I 
was guilty of the charge specified in the 
[ 110 ] 


ECLIPSE 


warrant, and of a great deal more, too, of the 
same kind that wasn’t specified.” 

The poor man looked shocked—at my folly, 
I think. We went downstairs. They did not 
attempt to handcuff me. A four-wheeler was 
waiting at the door. We got in and drove to 
Bow Street. 

I had felt that the old horrible nightmare of 
a life was done with, that something else was 
coming. And here it was. Penal servitude. 
Most right; most just. And in the noisy 
growler, as I drove to Bow Street to be con¬ 
demned to perpetual uselessness in the economy 
of this busy world, I feebly asked to be numbered 
among the lowest serfs in His Vineyard. And 
there, too, in the Strand, almost on the very 
spot where He had come to me on Friday, I 
heard the voice of the Child with the broom: 
“Dear Christopher, old playmate: Open your 
heart, let me in, let me in, that together we may 
sweep my temple clean. Let me in.” And in the 
prison cell loud came the knocking again; knock, 
knock; knock, knock; let me in, let me in. O 
then at last the floodgates burst, and I broke 
down and cried aloud: O yes, come, come 
quickly, dear Child of my childhood; come, 
sweep my heart, O sweep my heart! And the 
sweet Child came in great jubilation, and using 

[mi 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

the running waters of my tears, swept and 
swept, until the unclean things that had so long 
kept leets and law days in His sanctuary, came 
tumbling out, one over the other, down, down, 
into the nethermost Pit whence in madness I had 
summoned them to share with me God’s holy 
temple of the human heart. Benedictus Deus. 
Tibi laus, tibi gloria, O fons misericordiarum. 2 

*St. Augustine's Confessions, vi. 16. 


[ 112 ] 


CHAPTER VI 


SECLUSION 

On Thursday morning Casauban came to see 
me in prison with one of the Bouveries, his firm 
of solicitors. He asked me not a single question 
about myself, but began by saying that Mr. 
Bouverie would arrange for counsel to defend me. 
I thanked him but told him that I was guilty, 
that I intended to put in no defence before the 
magistrate and to plead guilty at the sessions. 
The solicitor protested fussily and profession¬ 
ally, but Casauban understood me and stopped 
him. Whereupon he took up his hat and de¬ 
parted. 

“Is there nothing else I can do?” Casauban 
asked. 

I reflected a moment. “Yes,” I said. “I would 
like to see a priest, if you can arrange it for me. 
If possible my old confessor at Farm Street, 
Father Yandelaer. I don’t know how these 
things are managed in prisons.” 

A look of relief came over his face. He would 
have spoken, but the shyness, the awkwardness, 
[113] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


of which you have spoken in your book was be¬ 
coming more and more marked in him. “May 
I come back and see you?” he asked, humbly. 

“Dear Casauban,” I replied, “it is better not. 
There is nothing that can be done, nothing that 
should be done. For the next few years, five 
years, seven years, my life is arranged for. 
Only think of it: if I had admitted you the other 
evening, perhaps I should not be here now. But 
it is better so; oh, how much better so. Your 
loving-kindness might but have delayed my com¬ 
ing back to God. Here I could not escape Him. 
If ever I need help, I promise I will write to you. 
But if you really wish to help me now, pray for 
me as you were praying last time I came to seek 
your help.” 

We shook hands and parted with many things 
unsaid. 

And Cressida! Cressida! she too would know 
that I was a felon and about to disappear from 
the ken of men. What was she doing? What 
was she thinking? And so I had really struck 
her as a man good and strong, rooted in God’s 
Order and service. And she still expected to 
find me pure, and straight, and strong as when 
first she knew me. She was right. Obviously I 
had the grace, obviously I had the strength. 
Therefore I need not have fallen. My fall was 
[114] 


SECLUSION 


wickedness, pure and simple. At least I did not 
deceive myself. 

A letter came from her on Friday morning. 
I will read you some bits of it. “You will think 
from my letter that this will make me wish to 
separate from you. Oh, no, dear Chris, do not 
think so for a moment. In leaving you, I was 
guilty of a far worse crime than ever yours 
could be. Did you not put the torch of Faith in 
my hands at our first meeting, and yet I sinned 
against its light. I, and I only, am to blame for 
what has happened to you. It is my turn to 
wait now. I am going to work in the Raphael 
Street Hospital in Bethnal Green. And there I 
shall wait until you come to take me away. You 
will come back with a heart as big, and strong, 
and good as ever it was. I know that your dear 
Master Jesus is knocking at the door of your 
heart. And I know clearly that you have al¬ 
ready admitted Him. He could not live long 
away from a heart He loved so much.” 

I was almost angry with her that she could 
suppose that love once profaned as it had been 
by me, could ever be revived and resumed, and 
I wrote briefly saying all this, and begging her 
to put me entirely out of her mind as I could 
never see her again. The fault, I told her, was 
absolutely mine for having checked her heroic 
[115] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


impulse and stayed her martyrdom when she was 
a girl of fifteen. 

***** 

I was brought before the magistrate next day. 
Charlie Bouverie was in court, and he rushed up 
to me, regardless of forms. He was in his 
father’s office now. We had not met since my 
eclipse. He was biting his lip, poor chap; and 
there were tears in his eyes. I had heard 
vaguely that he had become a Catholic. And 
now he is a priest of the Oratory. Why could 
I not have been instrumental in his conversion? 
We were always about together. But never yet 
has it been given to me to lead a single soul out 
of confusion into order. 

“Do you represent the prisoner, Mr. Bou¬ 
verie ?” asked the magistrate, a little sharply. 

“No, sir!” replied Charlie, apologetically. 
The magistrate’s look said plainly as possible: 
then step down, please. 

“Are you represented?” the magistrate in¬ 
quired, turning to me. 

“No, sir!” 

“Do you intend to be represented?” 

“No, sir!” 

He then called upon counsel to make his 
opening statement. It was a brief, straight- 
[ 116 ] 


SECLUSION 


forward exposition of the facts. The first 
witness called was one of the officers who 
arrested me. He deponed that after the war¬ 
rant had been read to me I stated that I was 
guilty, and had often been guilty of the same 
offence before. Then came Mr. Jarrett with 
proof from the bank books, borne out by two 
other witnesses from the bank, that my defalca¬ 
tions had been practised repeatedly. Then fol¬ 
lowed poor Beaton, who blubbered in the box 
and made a very bad witness for the prosecu¬ 
tion. (I had sworn at him a good deal, poor 
devil, but I had also been generous.) That was 
all, I think. As each witness was called, and at 
the end of his evidence, the magistrate asked me 
if I wished to cross-examine, and each time I 
answered, “No, sir!” Even when the depositions 
of all the witnesses against me had been read 
over aloud, he asked me whether I had anything 
to say, and again I replied, “No sir! except that 
all that has been proved against me here is true, 
and that at my trial I shall plead guilty.” 
“That being so,” said the magistrate, “you will 
be committed for trial at the next sessions.” I 
was greatly struck by the entire fairness of the 
proceedings. 

* * * * * 

[117] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

My trial took place at the Old Bailey. I 
pleaded guilty. Counsel for the Crown then 
made his statement. I was ignorant of the pro¬ 
cedure in courts, and was surprised at his 
moderation. He was neither scathing nor 
rhetorical, but confined himself to a statement 
of facts. I suppose that as I had already 
pleaded guilty and my condemnation was as¬ 
sured, there was no need to pitch things in a 
high key. He even gave the devil his due. He 
said that for about eight years I had been of 
exemplary conduct and was a most promising 
bank clerk, that I had early been placed in 
positions of trust important beyond my years, 
that my advice had been sought by my em¬ 
ployers on account of the special aptitude I 
had shown in the matter of investments, and 
that I had finally been advanced to one of the 
highest positions of trust the bank had to offer. 
That about four years ago I had got into wild 
and dissipated ways beyond the common, but 
had shown extraordinary self-command as re¬ 
gards my business, and had continued to give 
every satisfaction and to be implicitly trusted. 
Counsel considered it his duty to draw his lord¬ 
ship’s particular attention to those parts of the 
police court depositions which showed that the 
prisoner, though on trial for the embezzlement 
[ 118 ] 


SECLUSION 


of one amount of £1,200, had continually, and 
for a period of nearly three years, made use of 
the bank’s money for his own purposes, al¬ 
though he had always been able to replace the 
amounts before discovery. With all deference 
counsel supposed that his lordship would wish 
to be in possession very fully of all such facts 
as would enable him to arrive at the sentence to 
be inflicted in a case in which birth, good breed¬ 
ing, education, a high reputation for honour, 
had in a special manner contributed to deceive, 
and consequently to aggravate, the serious 
breach of trust which had been committed. 

The judge then turned to me and said: “You 
have heard what counsel says. Have you any¬ 
thing you wish to say?” 

“No, my lord, nothing whatever!” 

“You have heard him say that in addition to 
the amount with which you are charged, you 
have been guilty of a number of previous acts 
of embezzlement, which, however, you were able 
to make good before they were detected? Is 
that true?” 

“Yes, my lord. Perfectly true.” 

“Do you wish to call any witnesses ?” 

“None, my lord!” 

“Have you anything you wish to say to me 
before I pass sentence?” 

[ H9] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


“Nothing, my lord!” 

A pause. A whispered consultation with the 
clerk of the court. I had been struck by the 
judge’s fairness of manner, his evident desire 
that I should use such privileges as I was en¬ 
titled to. Then his manner changed. He grew 
stern, impressive. 

“Christopher Austin Gideon Mavourez!” he 
began. (Oh, then I quailed for the first time, to 
hear our name pronounced in a public court 
with the reproach that I had brought upon it. 
I put my hands before my face, and seemed to 
hear a ghastly howl in my ears: Mavourez love 
doth end in shame.) The judge paused for a 
moment and then continued: “You have 
pleaded guilty to a charge of embezzling the sum 
of £1,200. The court now hears that this is 
only the last of a series of acts of embezzle¬ 
ment on your part extending over a considerable 
period of time, and involving in the aggregate a 
very substantial sum of money. All these em¬ 
bezzlements, save the last, you were able to 
make good, but I cannot admit this as a factor 
in your favour, because it shows that having 
embarked upon a career of fraud you per¬ 
sisted in it, regardless of the many warnings 
you must have received, and heedless of the op¬ 
portunities that arose, on each occasion, to 
[ 120 ] 


SECLUSION 


abandon that career. I cannot find in your 
case any circumstance to suggest that you acted 
at any time, evek on the first occasion that you 
helped yourself to money that was not your 
own, under any sudden pressure of temptation 
or distress, or that you took the money for any 
object worthier than your own selfish and 
wicked pleasures. Nor can I allow the fact that 
there is nothing against your previous char¬ 
acter, to operate in your favour. It is men of 
good character who are placed in positions of 
trust because of their good character; it was 
your good character in great measure that en¬ 
abled you to commit the offences of which you 
are now charged. You were in a position of 
great trust and responsibility, and in receipt of 
a salary that should have amply rewarded that 
responsibility, and was amply adequate for all 
your reasonable needs. The sentence that I 
pass upon you must needs be severe. The crime 
of embezzlement is on the increase: too many 
cases have of late been before the courts. The 
sentences given have had no deterrent effect, and 
lately in several big cases of similar frauds the 
delinquents have escaped justice by getting 
beyond extradition facilities. Public confidence 
is being shaken. An example is called for. 
You have abused your trust, not once but many 
[ 121 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


times; you have used to the full the abilities and 
natural advantages you had to lull to sleep any 
suspicions your employers might have had, and 
though it is true that you have made no attempt 
at any time to deny the charges and have 
pleaded guilty, I should be failing in my duty to 
the public—whose confidence in all matters 
where trusteeship of any kind is involved must 
be sustained—if I passed a lesser sentence on 
you than the one I am about to pass, namely 
that you be kept in penal servitude for a period 
of five years.” 

There was a little hum in court, it seemed to 
me of surprise. I noticed legal gentlemen nod¬ 
ding to each other, and whispering, and differ¬ 
ing in opinion. I gathered that the sentence 
was thought somewhat severe. But the prisoner 
at all events had no fault to find with it. The 
whole of the remainder of my life must be one of 
expiation and penance. With my utter want of 
vocation for a religious order, how was I ever to 
find such a life? Here at all events four or five 
years of it had been beneficently arranged for 
me. 


* * # # # 

On the night of my condemnation I received 
a grace that strengthened me marvellously for 
[ 122 ] 


SECLUSION 


prison life and the long years of penance which 
were to follow. I was tossing on my truckle 
bed, trying to sleep. The cell was in inky dark¬ 
ness. I opened my eyes after having vainly 
tried for hours, so it seemed, to snatch at sleep. 
Suddenly I noticed in the corner of the cell a 
faint shimmer of light, and soon a few tongues 
of flame rose up out of it and vanished. I sat 
up in bed, and then fell back on my elbow. That 
I remember distinctly. Little by little, out of 
the shimmering light emerged an azure ground 
fretted with pearl-like cloud, and a ruby frame 
shaped as a heart formed itself round the 
heavenly mass. And then I saw, but whether 
waking or sleeping I cannot tell: God knoweth: 
I saw a lovely golden-haired Child in a rose- 
coloured tunic standing on silver clouds in the 
midst of the heart. He held a harp which shone 
like topaz and struck a few chords, not rich, 
simple rather, but very sweet, and as he struck 
his harp he sang in a soft, rhythmic monotone: 
“Child of St. Bona, dear Christopher, I’m 
within thee. I’m within thee in all the glory of 
my Majesty. I’m within thee. Together let 
us praise the One and undivided Trinity. I’m 
within thee. I’m within.” And then he broke 
into heavenly song, and I sang with him. He 
[ 123 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


gave out the divine versicles, and for all re- 
sponsory I answered with the angelic Alleluia! 

Dominus Deiis tuus in medio tui, fortis: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Ipse salvabit: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Gaudebit super te in laetitia: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Silebit in delectione sua: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Exaltabit super te in laude: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Benedicamus Patrem et Filium cum Sancto Spiritu: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Dominus Deus tuus in medio tui, fortis: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! 

Ipse salvabit: 

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! 

He ceased to sing, and took up once more the 
sweet, consoling monotone Vm within thee , strik¬ 
ing a few chords on his harp the while, and then 
the heavenly vision faded away little by little 
as it had come, until only a faint shimmer of 
light marked the spot where it had been. All 
this I heard and saw, but whether waking or 
sleeping I know not: God knoweth: but this I 
do know, that restful peace was in my heart at 
the dawn of the next day, and that the Sun of 
Righteousness has never wholly left me since. 

* * * * * 

[ 124 ] 


SECLUSION 


Of my prison life I need say next to nothing. 
My first six months—the hardest of all—were 
done in an ordinary prison. After that I was 
moved to a convict prison for the rest of my 
term. Religion returned to me completely in 
prison, and in that I was happy. The Chap¬ 
lain’s visits were a bright spot, and I was able 
to go to confession and communion frequently. 
My conduct in prison was of course decent. I be¬ 
lieve that it was even called “exemplary.” I took 
to the prison work simply because it was work. 
Soon I was given small places of trust, and in 
three years’ time I was made “librarian,” a curi¬ 
ous appointment it seemed to one who had never 
read or handled books. But it was work, and 
no work ever came amiss to me. Besides it 
actually had the effect of making me read a 
little. I took up St. Augustine’s Confessions 
because he was my patron saint, and read and 
was fascinated. There was an old, battered 
French version of the Soliloquies , Meditations 
and Manual attributed to him, robust piety 
which appealed strongly to me. Both the Con¬ 
fessions and this book bred contrition, and 
helped me to aspire to complete conversion and 
purification. You will hardly believe that I had 
never read the Imitation. But that is so. My 
idea of dutiful spiritual reading was Rodriguez, 
[ 125 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


and when I had laboured through him I began 
him all over again. The Imitation showed me 
how much I had lost by not reading. But 
having found this book of books, it stopped me 
reading anything else. I read it in my six 
languages continually, turn and turn about, 
Latin, English, French, Italian, German, and 
Netherlandish. The Chaplain helped me to get 
these books, and out of my earnings in prison I 
had saved enough to buy them. 

Near the end of my fourth year the Gov¬ 
ernor informed me that one year of my sentence 
had been remitted for good conduct, and that I 
could prepare to leave the prison in a month’s 
time. I thanked him, but was indifferent to the 
news. What was to become of me? My life 
was what the world called completely blasted. 
All careers were closed to one who had been 
condemned for a gross breach of trust. I 
could hardly hope to earn the barest daily 
bread anywhere if it were known who I was. 
I had not a penny in the world and must live. 
But even if a good thing were to offer in a 
distant country where no one knew me, I could 
not take it. I had bound myself to what I 
deserved, a penitential life for the rest of my 
days. How to find this—there was the rub. 
A severe religious order? Nothing could be 
[ 126 ] 


SECLUSION 


Of my prison life I need say next to nothing. 
My first six months—the hardest of all—were 
done in an ordinary prison. After that I was 
moved to a convict prison for the rest of my 
term. Religion returned to me completely in 
prison, and in that I was happy. The Chap¬ 
lain’s visits were a bright spot, and I was able 
to go to confession and communion frequently. 
My conduct in prison was of course decent. I be¬ 
lieve that it was even called “exemplary.” I took 
to the prison work simply because it was work. 
Soon I was given small places of trust, and in 
three years’ time I was made “librarian,” a curi¬ 
ous appointment it seemed to one who had never 
read or handled books. But it was work, and 
no work ever came amiss to me. Besides it 
actually had the effect of making me read a 
little. I took up St. Augustine’s Confessions 
because he was my patron saint, and read and 
was fascinated. There was an old, battered 
Trench version of the Soliloquies , Meditations 
and Manual attributed to him, robust piety 
which appealed strongly to me. Both the Con¬ 
fessions and this book bred contrition, and 
helped me to aspire to complete conversion and 
purification. You will hardly believe that I had 
never read the Imitation. But that is so. My 
idea of dutiful spiritual reading was Rodriguez, 
[ 125 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


and when I had laboured through him I began 
him all over again. The Imitation showed me 
how much I had lost by not reading. But 
having found this book of books, it stopped me 
reading anything else. I read it in my six 
languages continually, turn and turn about, 
Latin, English, French, Italian, German, and 
Netherlandish. The Chaplain helped me to get 
these books, and out of my earnings in prison I 
had saved enough to buy them. 

Near the end of my fourth year the Gov¬ 
ernor informed me that one year of my sentence 
had been remitted for good conduct, and that I 
could prepare to leave the prison in a month’s 
time. I thanked him, but was indifferent to the 
news. What was to become of me? My life 
was what the world called completely blasted. 
All careers were closed to one who had been 
condemned for a gross breach of trust. I 
could hardly hope to earn the barest daily 
bread anywhere if it were known who I was. 
I had not a penny in the world and must live. 
But even if a good thing were to offer in a 
distant country where no one knew me, I could 
not take it. I had bound myself to what I 
deserved, a penitential life for the rest of my 
days. How to find this—there was the rub. 
A severe religious order? Nothing could be 
[ 126 ] 


SECLUSION 


more convenient, if God placed me there. But 
this was not to be looked for, as I had too 
manifestly no vocation for the religious life. 
But Deus providebit, and I could not doubt 
that if a penitential life were to present itself 
to me on my release, it would represent God’s 
designs and I should embrace it. I was con¬ 
scious of a change in me after nearly four 
years of prison life. I had a greater sensible 
love of God. Up to the age of twenty-four 
life had been smooth, and my love for God I 
consider was little more than dutiful: I strove 
to repay Him for all His goodness by loyalty 
and a decent, straight life—that was all. That 
I should have been taken out of the depths to 
which I had sunk during the terrors of my 
eclipse, that I should have been placed again 
in His Order, enrolled again in His service 
at the same wages as those who had never failed 
Him,—all this touched me to the quick and 
roused sensible love and gratitude. 

The day of my release came. I had been 
allowed to grow my hair and beard. The 
beard, which I had never seen before, was 
grotesque (I really ought not to be wearing 
it now, it is pure laziness), but I saw at once 
that it was a wonderfully complete disguise. 
I was given a rough, ill-fitting suit made in 
[ 127 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


the prison tailoring department, a grey flannel 
shirt, a celluloid collar and a pair of heavy 
boots. I had saved about £6 out of money 
earned by prison labour. Thus equipped I 
proposed to seek out a cheap lodging-house, 
and trust that the Will of God would be re¬ 
vealed to me before my slender store of money 
had dwindled away. 

The governor sent for me. There was a 
gentleman with him in his room with such an 
eager, warm, kind look in his clear eyes. Oh 
friend, dear friend, that you should have 
thought even of this, that you should have 
been watching and waiting and arranging for 
this day. Decidedly my emotions were no 
longer under control. “Come,” said the Gov¬ 
ernor, kindly, “you shall have a room to your¬ 
selves where you can talk. But first let me 
say” (turning to me) “that I think I can at 
least promise that you will not be required to 
report personally to the police during the 
period that you are under supervision. It will 
be sufficient if you report by letter. This, I 
hope, will make it easier for you to find work 
and return to normal life.” I thanked him 
warmly. He led us to a room adjoining his 
own. Here he whispered something to Casau- 
ban, who answered audibly, “when I call.” 

[ 128 ] 


SECLUSION 


“Paul,” I said, “I know you have come here 
to take me to your house-” 

“No, Chris,” he replied, “I haven’t, because 
I knew you wouldn’t come. I knew that you 
would be content with nothing less than work 
and independence. Every profession, every 
chance of recovery in the world in a position 
suited to your abilities is gone, is it not? Any 
work that could be found for you and keep 
you unknown would be so mean as to be simply 
penitential-” 

“Yes, yes!” I cried, eagerly. 

He smiled. “I believe you want penitential 
work-” 

“Yes, but not only I,” I interrupted; “I be¬ 
lieve God wants it for me.” 

“You know that!” he replied. “And so 
do I!” 

“Then find it for me, find it for me!” I cried 
excitedly. 

“I believe I have,” he answered. “Let me 
see, this is Wednesday. You can start on 
next Monday if you like the idea. One of the 
directors of the old Vulcan Insurance Company 
is an old friend of my father’s. The company 
wants six supernumerary clerks. One berth 
has been reserved for any nominee of mine. 
You will get thirty shillings a week. The work 
[ 129 ] 





CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


is nominally only temporary, but they might 
keep you on a year or two according to their 
needs. Do you accept ?” 

“It is just what I need—bare subsistence 
united to what would to me be severe penance. 
But how can I take anything in the city of 
London, where I should be sure to be recog¬ 
nised?” 

He smiled. “Come over to the glass here 
and look at yourself.” 

He was right. With that beard, in such 
clothes, even my former fellow-clerks could 
hardly recognise again the once “best dressed 
man in the city.” 

“Yes, I accept. No greater penance can 
I imagine than to be at work again on the 
scene of my former successes as a despised 
super, without any secure tenure, without any¬ 
thing to vary the endless monotony of the 
day’s job of mechanical copying, carefully 
having to hide that I have business knowledge 
and ability, carefully having to avoid making 
the slightest friendly advance to those around 
me, or even to receive such advances. Yes, 
this is indeed a penitential life. Oh, wonderful 
that He should have at once provided for me 
a situation which, when I thought it over in 
[ 130 ] 


SECLUSION 


prison, seemed quite hopeless to find. I must 
take a false name, I fear. You don’t mind?” 

“Of course not. Now I fear you will have 
to take a loan of £50 from me for outfit. 
Listen a moment. You had better have your 
own little house than be in lodgings. It will 
be more private and secret. In the E. direction 
I know of a row where you can get a tiny house 
for £10 a year. That will leave you the hand¬ 
some sum of £68 a year to live on. . . . And 
now something important. I met a lady here 
this morning who is waiting to see you—Miss 
Cressida Vaughan.” 

“I don’t want to see her!” I interrupted, 
greatly agitated. “I cannot possibly see her! 
Can’t we be going?” 

“You must see her, Chris. You must be 
just. I believe I have surprised a secret of 
yours, a secret most wonderfully kept. She 
is waiting. I begged to be allowed to see you 
first. She is with the Governor’s wife. I know 
it is your duty to see her!” 

He opened the door into the Governor’s room 
and called. Cressida came forward and stood 
in the doorway, her face gathered into the 
sweetest expression of love and anxiety. It 
was sixteen years—sixteen years!—since I had 
last seen her in St. Helen’s Place, a lovely girl 
[ 131 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


of seventeen, and here she was in the full 
splendour of womanly beauty. I realised how 
deeply I had been shaken by the life of the 
last eight years. My emotions were no longer 
under the same control. If she had come to 
speak of love, to plead for union, the ordeal 
I had to undergo would be terrible. 

“I will leave you to talk,” said Casauban, 
going into the Governor’s room. 

Cressida came straight over to me, placed her 
hands lightly on my shoulders, and hid her face 
on the back of one of her hands. “Dear Chris,” 
she said, “for nearly a year I have been in 
Italy. I went to Pisa, so that I might see the 
Villa Cavalca where your mother was born. 
What you told me of her that May evening 
in old Capulet’s orchard, the miniature you 
showed me of her, enchanted me. I love her 
very name, Bona; I think of her constantly; 
I pray to her—especially for you and me. I 
found the padrone —your cousin Domenico 
Cavalca whom you have never seen—more than 
willing to sell. I bought the villa at once. The 
name of Cavalca has disappeared from the brick 
pillars of the gateway: the house is now called 
the Villa Bona. It was like consecrating a 
chapel and hermitage to a new saint—the Beata 
Bona. Scattered round the villa, with a cypress 
[ 132 ] 


SECLUSION 


tree here and there to mark their boundaries, 
are the seven poderi that go with it, giving 
work to ten families of simple, loveable, de¬ 
voted souls. They are calling to you to guide 
them with your judgment and knowledge, to 
share their labours, their troubles and their 
joys. Here is good and useful work, here in¬ 
deed is a mission, all ready to your hand. The 
little kingdom has acclaimed its ruler: all is 
ready for the entry of its lord!” 

She felt that I would have started away in 
protest, and looked up beseechingly, the blue 
eyes moist, as if to say: wait,—only a moment 
more. She hid her face again on her hand. 
“I know, I know exactly what you would say,” 
she went on. “Oh, how well I know you! I 
know exactly what you meant in your letter 
when you said that love profaned cannot be 
resumed. Yes, the great love as you truly 
called it, is gone for us beyond recall. It lives 
for ever in my heart, in yours. It is for¬ 
bidden to us to realise it, but, Chris, why 
should we not take the vow of the Soldier-Saint 
Henry and his Empress Cunegonda: we will 
found our lives on theirs, and always be to¬ 
gether. I must be there to care for you, I 
must be there to bind up your wounds, and 
you must be by me to tell me of God’s Will 
[ 133 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


and so have you. But forgiveness is not 
enough. There are no regenerating waters 
that can wash away my outrage upon a love 
which is next to God’s love in greatness 1 —the 
pure love of man and woman. Our love was 
a manifestation of Paradise, and any maimed 
substitute or pretence could only be a torment 
of hell. You see this already, and bless me 
for my free speech. A great and complete 
sacrifice is required of both of us: henceforth 
we shall be joined in one life of sacrifice. A 
merciful God has redeemed me from a horrible 
life, and set me once more, if sadly lamed, upon 
the narrow way. There I may fall often—but 
on, please God, not from, the way. Oh, Cres- 
sida, I may be of good cheer, the narrow way, 
which I walked too proudly and confidently 
until at last I fell from it, is dotted with 
Heaven’s first-aid stations, and the winged 
brothers of the Celestial Misericordia are ever 
on the watch with their swift hand-ambulances. 
Good-bye, dear Cressida! Our sacrifice must 
be complete; no letters even; a separation once 
for all and utterly, a perfect holocaust. For 
you I have no fear. See, He awaits you even 
here, His arms full of graces, His heart full of 

l Geen liefde komt Gods liefde nader; 

Noch is zoo groot.— Vondel. 

[ 136 ] 


SECLUSION 


love. Clasp His right hand; suffer yourself 
to be led according to His Will: His glory, 
I know, will encompass you. 2 I shall follow 
from afar upon the same road. Cressida, I 
believe that you will go deep in spiritual prayer 
and the contemplative life about which I know 
so little. Speak to Casauban about it. He 
is a wonderful guide. And then, dear Cressida, 
when you pray, memento mei. With you and 
Paul Casauban to pray for me, I may never 
so much as need first-aid upon the narrow way.” 

I had ended, and now, O wonder! as she 
stood ready to depart, there appeared around 
her head, rising slowly,—not the Mavourez 
flame, but majestical, a white, diaphanous light 
fretted with a celestial fire of golden tongues,— 
a veritable glory. And for the merits of St. 
Gideon and my ancestors it was given even to 
me to see the faint golden outline of a Regal 
Figure, diaphanous as her aureole, leading her 
away as if to heavenly nuptials through the 
triumph of martyrdom. At the sight thus 
revealed to my unworthy eyes, the refrain of 
an old Netherlandish ballad rose up within me, 
melodious as a bridal chant: 

2 Tenuisti manum dexteram meam: et in voluntate 
tua deduxisti me: et cum gloria suscepisti me.— 
Psalm lxxii. 


[ 137 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Strew lily leaves and the red rose, 

Agnes to her wedding goes. 8 

At the door she stopped, her hand still in His, 
and spoke for the last time: “Chris, dear heart, 
you placed my hand in His, here before the 
altar of our love and sorrows: be sure that 
I shall never loose it again.” 

And with that she passed through the door 
and out of my life but deep, deep down into 
my soul, and by the light and glory of her 
last sacrifice I have been helped to grope my 
way along the strait road to the gate where, 
in a sure and certain hope, I now await the 
joyful summons from the city within! 

8 Sint Agnes’ Bruiloft, by Johannes Stalpert van der 
Wide, priest (1579-1630). 

Strooit ro6 roos’ en lelie-blaan, 

Agnes zal te Bruiloft gaan. 


[ 138 ] 


CHAPTER VII 


EXPIATION 

Aijjj was arranged for me to begin work in 
the Vulcan Insurance Company on the following 
Monday. I took the little house in the East, 
about two miles from the city, at £10 a year. 
It was at the corner of an interminable noisy 
street called Meadows Lane. There were four 
rooms and a kitchen. Three windows and a 
door in front graced each of the houses in 
long succession. At the back was a tiny yard, 
in the front a small muddy patch of ground 
with a withered bush in the centre. There was 
nothing for it but to accept a loan of £50 from 
Casauban. I furnished a bed- and a sitting- 
room with absolute necessities, and bought a 
few kitchen utensils. I also bought two ready¬ 
made baggy suits and an overcoat, and some 
soft white shirts and collars. £5 remained over 
to me after my purchases. I put this in the 
savings bank as the nucleus of the savings with 
which I was going to repay Casauban’s loan at 
a very remote date. 

[ 139 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


I had been told that the office hours were 
9.30 to 4.30, with a quarter of an hour’s grace 
in the morning. An attendance book had to 
be signed by every clerk as he entered. This 
was taken away at 9.45 sharp, and the names 
of the clerks who arrived late and had not 
signed, were written in red ink below the others. 
I was the first to arrive, and signed at the 
head of the list in my best fancy hand, James 
Wilxjams, the name under which I now passed. 
A messenger took me downstairs to the base¬ 
ment and into a large lavatory with a long row 
of basins. Round three sides of the room ran 
numbered lockers, and a locker was assigned to 
me in which I put my hat and coat. I was 
asked, would I lunch on the premises or go out? 
If I went out, half an hour for lunch would 
be given me. On the premises I could have 
a plate of meat or fish, vegetables, bread, 
cheese, and a glass of beer for a shilling. This 
was grand, and solved the food problem for 
me completely. I readily elected to lunch in¬ 
doors. 

I was then taken upstairs to a remote part 
of the building called the Foreign Fire Depart¬ 
ment. A clerk produced a large flat register 
and a big bundle of sheets well covered with 
writing. These were copies of policies from 
[ 140 ] 


EXPIATION 


the branches and agencies in different parts 
of the world. From them I had to transfer 
to the columns of the register the number of 
the policy, the name of the insured, the nature 
of the risk, the address, the sum insured, the 
amount of the premium, the period of risk and 
the date of expiry. That was all. This, and 
this alone, was to be my work for whatsoever 
time I might be kept by the company. I 
realised at once how bitter beyond all thought, 
how seemingly heavy beyond all bearing, was 
the penitential life upon which I had now 
entered. Think of my previous position in the 
city which, if the partnership had failed me, 
would easily have led to the management and 
control of any of the biggest banks going. 
Here I was that most wretched species of city 
clerk, the poor super on a weekly wage, who 
could be turned adrift at a moment’s notice; 
here the life was simply stagnation, which in 
the course of years might very well bring on 
softening of the brain. I heard the roar of 
traffic outside which had so stimulated me in 
the past, and my pulses tingled at the remem¬ 
brance of the active life, now dead and gone 
for ever. But such thoughts were absurd. I 
had found, almost miraculously, exactly the 
life I had asked for and wanted, and my soul 
[141] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


was really full of gratitude. For I was not 
merely on the narrow way, but had taken up 
my cross and was following Him, if from afar. 

My arrival created a good deal of curiosity, 
and there was tittering among the younger 
clerks. I think my beard was the subject of 
considerable merriment; perhaps, too, my ill- 
fitting “slops.” Foreign business was fairly 
new to the company, and had not yet fully 
developed. The department did not seem 
particularly busy, and there was plenty of 
laughing, talking and joking. A good deal 
of chaff flew about, some of it directed at me. 
I bent low over my work and tried to seem 
absorbed in the weary monotony. When the 
foreign manager and the head of our room 
had been called downstairs for consultations, 
bits of india-rubber and elastic bands shot as 
catapults, began to hurtle through the air. 
A bit of india-rubber hit me full in the eye, 
causing a running stream. A little clerk of 
seventeen came hurrying up with a real look 
of concern in his face. “Awfully sorry, old 
chap,” he said; “I meant it for that beast 
Haynes.” Whereupon the beast Haynes tried 
to tip him on the head with a ruler across me, 
and hit my knuckles instead. There was gen- 
[142] 


EXPIATION 


cral delighted laughter. Then the two, each 
with a ruler, fought a duel behind, across, and 
around me, and the beast Haynes slipping, 
caught hold of my coat and dragged me off 
my stool to the ground. At that moment the 
swing-door opened and in dashed the little 
manager briskly with a large bundle of papers 
under his arm. There was an immediate leap¬ 
ing on to stools; pencils dashed up and down 
columns in imaginary additions, registers were 
fussily swished over and over for entries that 
were not wanted, and there was a general 
atmosphere of prodigious absorption in work. 
I alone stood idle, dolefully brushing my clothes. 
The manager looked at me sternly, but passed 
on. I was only a super, and could be dismissed 
that night. After being caught red-handed 
in a boisterous romp on my first day, I fully 
expected dismissal in the evening. 

The day passed intensely wearily. My mind 
seemed to give under the blank inanity of the 
work. At a quarter to five I got to the bottom 
of a page and stopped. I started to find the 
manager looking over my shoulder, and I pre¬ 
pared for dismissal. “Very good, Mr. Wil¬ 
liams, very neat and clear. And you’ve done 
a very good allowance, too.” Certainly my 

[ 1J3 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


pages looked shipshape enough. I was not 
writing my natural hand, but an artificial one, 
clear and ornamental, but very laborious to do. 

I went down to the lavatory to get my hat 
and coat. The beast Haynes and another 
youth, side by side, were having a vigorous 
sluice in two of the basins. 

“What think of noo super?” one was saying 
between his splashes. 

“Bit barmy in the crumpet, eh?” 

“Seems to me more criminal lunatic type.” 

“P’raps so. Quiet sort of beast, though.” 

“I dessay. But p’raps we’ll knock sparks 
out of him yet. What?” 

“Rummy beard, eh?” 

“Doosid rummy!” 

I slipped away without being noticed. This 
summary of my characteristics was really 
rather valuable information. I saw that I 
must be very careful not to give these high- 
spirited young gentlemen any openings for 
skylarking with me. If I could play the 
imbecile a bit, it would help in my disguise, 
perhaps withdraw attention from me,—but per¬ 
haps also attract it. I must be careful not to 
overdo. 

Arrived at home, I sat down and began to 
calculate ways and means. 

[ 144 ] 


EXPIATION 


£ s. d. 

First there was my rent per annum. 10 0 0 

My mid-day meal at the office for 307 days 

at Is. with annual gratuity, say. 16 0 0 

My mid-day meal at home on Sundays and 

holidays for 68 days at Is. 2 18 0 

My breakfast and supper for 365 days at 

say Is. 6d. a day. 27 7 6 

Daily paper at a penny. 1 5 11 

Catholic weekly at a penny. 0 4 4 

Church plate, every Sunday 6d. (if possible).. 16 0 

Easter offering. 0 6 0 

Finest Navy Cut for a year (6d. a week). 1 6 0 


£60 12 9 

My annual income amounted to £78. Thus 
I had £17 7s. 3d. over for clothes, unlooked- 
for expenses, and savings. I had not realised 
that I should have so handsome an overplus. 
I walked to and from the city every day and 
in all weathers, so there was no expense for 
locomotion. Besides, in this way I was 
guaranteed punctuality, even on foggy days. 
Allowing a comfortable margin—and, as a 
matter of fact, I did improve rations a bit— 
I calculated on saving £10 a year. But natural 
extravagance of temperament stood in the way, 
and I rarely saved more than five. I was my 
own cook, char and gardener, for I worked hard 
at the mud-patch in front, and made it bright 
[ 145 ] 













CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

with borders and variegated flowers. I used 
the scrubbing brush and the broom vigorously, 
and really made the little shanty tidy and invit¬ 
ing. I cut myself off entirely from all recrea¬ 
tion, and went neither to theatre nor picture 
shows when they came in. But unawares I 
had managed to encourage the melodious, stir¬ 
ring, intoxicating piano-organs. Several of 
them got to know that I was good for a three¬ 
penny piece, and played exactly opposite my 
house. And then the joyful, graceful children 
of the East would dance there, and shout to 
me in my patch: “Chuck us a copper, 
governor!” But what they liked still better 
than coppers were the sooty roses, wallflowers 
and sweet-williams from my patch. They 
would put the flowers in their hair, and dance 
in rings round the organ with noisy joy, as 
if they had been the daughters of plutocrats 
and not the children of sweated labour. It was 
a blessed sight—and oh, how bitter the thought 
that I had not always run straight, and might 
now be doing good in the world. Somehow when 
Mr. Punch came down Meadows Lane with 
drum and cymbals, he always stopped opposite 
No. 113, and I saw him and heard him from 
my patch. I fear that dissipation of this kind 
[ 146 ] 


EXPIATION 


often reached a shilling a week or £2 12s. 
“per annum,” as we used to say in business. 

* * * * * 

The second day at the office passed like the 
first, and many another, so far as the work 
was concerned. Talking and joking among the 
clerks was pretty constant. Politics, however, 
divided the department and caused bitterness 
and strong language. Really they were as 
happy, merry, good-natured a set of fellows 
as one could expect to find anywhere, and the 
blessed spirit of humour kept constant holiday 
with them. Certainly no opportunity of sky¬ 
larking was ever lost. An opportunity occurred 
on the afternoon of the second day. “Let’s have 
a game of William Sneak!” proposed Soulsby, 
chucking up an apple and catching it. “Who’ll 
be Little Walter?” asked Haynes. “Mr. Wil¬ 
liams, like to be Little Walter?” I smiled 
vacantly. “Oh, show him first,” said Rickards; 
“that’s only fair!” Finally a delightful little 
chap with snub nose and twinkling eyes offered 
to be Little Walter. It was Little Walter’s 
business to stand in a corner with the apple on 
his head, holding up a ledger to protect his 
face, while the others took it in turn to have 
cockshies at the apple with bits of india-rubber. 

[ 147 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


I began to understand why the game was called 
William Sneak. It was indescribably comic, 
especially when little Walter tried pulling faces 
over the top of the ledger and received a big 
bit of india-rubber on the tip of his snub nose. 
On these occasions there was always a clerk 
posted near the counter to act as watchman, 
called for the nonce “Sister Anne.” He could 
see the manager before he came in at the swing 
doors. “Cave ! you blokes. Cave !” hissed Sister 
Anne. And then there was the same agile 
vaulting on to stools: away went the pens, up 
and down went the pencils, and over and over 
swished the leaves of ledgers and registers. 
Never was seen such a display of zealous 
clerical labour. But Little Walter was hold¬ 
ing his pocket handkerchief before a stream¬ 
ing nose. 

After six months of this life, I had estab¬ 
lished a reputation of being quiet, industrious, 
a decent sort, but a bit deficient and very 
solemn. I was left in comparative peace: chaff 
about me died down, and I was not expected 
to take part in romps. But alas! having with 
much effort attained to so desirable a reputa¬ 
tion, I lost it in a single moment of thought¬ 
lessness, and had to begin all over again to 
build it up. The department was great on puns: 

[ 148 ] 


EXPIATION 


but they were all very feeble puns, and that 
was why the department enjoyed them so. The 
talk had turned to tennis. Somebody remarked 
that young Rickards was quite a dook at the 
game. “Better mark 'is play in future,” said 
Soulsby. (A general groan). “Rather Early 
in the day, Mr. Soulsby, to make such Baron 
jests,” said Haynes. Much groaning, and a 
good deal of laughter. Then the very imp 
of mischief got into my blood. I looked up 
from my weary toil straight at Haynes and 
said, “Vi count ’em?” There was a yell, fol¬ 
lowed by groans, guffaws, and laughter, and a 
demonstrative crowd was round me, slapping 
me on the back. “I believe he’s a bold bad man 
in disguise,” said Haynes. “And I believe he’s 
Viscount in disguise,” said Little Walter. And 
the nickname unfortunately stuck, and I was 
always referred to as the Viscount, nor did I 
get rid of it till the department grew to great 
and flourishing proportions and all the fun 
and merriment died out of it. 

* * * # * 

At the end of Meadows Lane there was a 
small, corrugated-iron Catholic Church dedi¬ 
cated to the Holy Name and the English 
Martyrs. The priest was a cherubic boy of 
[ 149 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

twenty-five, whom it was almost ludicrous to 
call “Father,” hard-working, devoted, more 
sanguine than any mortal I ever met in my 
life. In the porch of the chapel were beauti¬ 
ful, framed, architectural designs of the large, 
handsome brick church that was going to rise 
when the sum of £4,500 had been fully sub¬ 
scribed. There was also a list of subscribers 
showing that subscriptions to date amounted 
to £121 4s. 7d. Inside, the little church was 
wonderfully spick and span, the greatest at¬ 
tention being given to cleanliness. The little 
priest often scrubbed the floors himself, and 
sometimes I lent a hand with the scrubbing 
brush. There were coloured plaster statues of 
the Sacred Heart and Our Lady before the 
altar rails, one on each side, there were stations 
of the Cross, and a big gold IHS on a blue 
ground over the altar—that was about as far 
as we went in ornaments. I got to love this 
little church more than any I had ever known. 
From the beginning I went, for the first time 
in my life, to daily Mass. Mass was at eight 
o’clock, and I had plenty of time to get my 
scanty breakfast, walk my two miles, and sign 
the book before nine forty-five. Before so very 
long I became the regular server at the week¬ 
day Mass. Our average congregation was four. 

[ 150 ] 


EXPIATION 


There were days when not a single person 
appeared. There had often been days, before 
my arrival, when the priest had had to be 
content with a woman answering the responses 
from the body of the church. There could 
certainly not have been more uncompromisingly 
bad Catholic ground in the whole of London 
than Meadows Lane. Well for Father Philip 
Jones that he remained unweariedly hopeful. 
He would plunge at times and insert whole-page 
stirring advertisement appeals, and get a 
response that just about paid the cost of the 
advertisement. He was an excellent preacher, 
and on the rare occasions that he could get a 
friendly pulpit for an appeal, he would come 
back with a few pounds some shillings and some 
pence. Otherwise not a soul showed the slight¬ 
est interest in the Meadows Lane project. But 
the reverend boy was never daunted, and 
averred that before many years were out 
Meadows Lane would boast of the finest 
Catholic Church in the East End. 

I went to confession to him every week, and 
to communion every Sunday. In six months he 
suggested my going to communion on Satur¬ 
days as well. This he gradually increased until, 
within a year, he had launched me into daily 
communion, a wonderful change in my life, for 
[ 151 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


which may Heaven bless him! We never be¬ 
came in the least intimate, and could hardly 
be called friends. I declined his frugal hospi¬ 
tality, and, of course, could not ask him to 
anything myself. He dropped in on me in the 
evenings sometimes for a chat and a pipe, and 
I on him. I liked him because he never asked 
any questions about me. So simple was he, that 
I don’t think I surprised him in any way. He 
knew in the Confessional that I had been a big 
sinner, and had been heavily punished by 
Almighty God. But otherwise I was very 
reticent, and except that I was a clerk in the 
Vulcan on a poor salary, he knew nothing 
whatsoever about me. 

# * * # % 

Now I really need not trouble you with any 
detailed account of the heavy monotony of my 
city life. It was quite contrary to precedent 
and practice in the case of a super, but I had 
become an institution, and was allowed to stay 
on. Seven and twenty years did I work there as 
a super on thirty shillings a week. I gained my 
great end, a life of unmolested penance: God hid 
me under His wings where the shadow was 
darkest, that no man might discover me. In 
the whole of that time my work never changed, 
[ 152 ] 


EXPIATION 


my wages were never raised. During the whole 
of that time I was never absent with a day’s 
illness, I was never once late in signing the 
book, I never once received a reprimand. At 
first I used to dread meeting in the streets, 
acquaintances of the old days who might 
recognise me. But I soon changed beyond 
recognition. Then our offices were situated at 
the east end of Fenchurch Street; my way 
home led up Aldgate and the Whitechapel 
Road, so I never had occasion to pass through 
those parts of the city which I principally 
frequented in banking days. I never, alas! 
even went to see St. Helen’s Place, where I 
had passed the most blissful, unalloyed two 
hours of happiness ever given me. 

Casauban I had lost sight of altogether. 
After about twenty-five years of my life as 
a super, I read a long, detailed review of the 
Solitaries of the Sambuca in my penny Catholic 
weekly. Something in the review gave me a 
haunting impression that it might relate to 
Casauban, so I plunged and actually bought 
the book, the first book I had bought in twenty- 
five years. I saw at once that the central 
character was the man who of all others I 
loved and reverenced. Although I didn’t under¬ 
stand the life, I fully understood your motive 
[ 153 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


in leaving the Sambuca to write a book about 
it. But I was filled with a great longing to 
take your place as business man, and relieve 
him of all anxiety of that kind. That was at 
the beginning of 1915. There was nothing to 
prevent me leaving the office at a day’s notice. 
I knew that Casauban would welcome me, and 
that there would be good practical work for 
me to do. But there was not the slightest evi¬ 
dence that it was God’s Will that I should go 
out to a place in the sun, whereas there was 
every evidence that He had placed me where 
I was to work out a life of penance. I did not 
hesitate, but stayed where I was. 

At the end of 1916 a fiat went forth that 
supers were to be abolished in the Vulcan. 
There were eleven of us. The general manager 
told me with real concern that no difference 
could be made in my case, and that I should 
have to cease work on the 31st of December. 
I was glad. Nothing else presented itself. I 
felt that the call to go to Casauban had come, 
and I prepared for the day of departure. 
When that day came, I certainly was a bit 
shaken by emotions. I could not say good-bye 
to the place or the people without a pang. But 
I dreaded the ordeal of the good-byes. I wrote 
on after closing time to finish off a batch of 
[ 154 ] 


EXPIATION 


policies, then laid down my pen for the last 
time, and nerved myself for the last adieux. 
It was with a start that I looked round the 
big room. Not a soul there. All had gone, 
oblivious of the fact that it was my last day. 
Instead of relief at the deliverance, I suddenly 
felt very humanly sore and sad. Even the 
“beast Haynes” had gone. He was one of the 
very few of the old staff left, and had been 
uniformly kind, and had even tried to get me 
out to Brixton to see “the wife and kids.” 
Well, pazienza! as we say here in Italy. I must, 
however, go to the manager’s room and say 
good-bye and thank: that was a duty. On the 
way I met one of the messengers, looking for me. 
“Manager wants to see you in the board-room 
at once!” he said. Odd, that he should want to 
see me in the room where he only saw directors. 
Perhaps one of the directors had found out 
who I was, and wanted to see me. Well, that 
wouldn’t much matter now. I opened the board- 
room door. The place was full of noisy men, 
young and old, laughing and chaffing. Pande¬ 
monium seemed let loose. At sight of me there 
were shouts of “Here he is! here he is! Order! 
Order!” A dead silence fell upon the room. 
I saw the general manager standing at the end 
of the long board table, and then his voice 
[ 155 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AhiD CRESSIDA 


travelled to me, seemingly from miles and miles 
away, through the heavy mist which hung be¬ 
fore my eyes. 

“Mr. Williams,” he was saying: “Your 
fellow-clerks have met here together under my 
auspices to bid you farewell and to wish you 
Godspeed in life. You have worked for the old 
Vulcan Company twenty-seven years, and by 
your steady industry, your devotion to duty, 
your uniform courtesy and the ready but un¬ 
assuming way in which you have adapted your¬ 
self to circumstances and people, you have 
earned the general esteem and goodwill of all 
—managers, clerks, messengers, and, I may say, 
the board of directors itself. In twenty-seven 
years you have never been absent a day from 
illness, in twenty-seven years you have never 
once failed to sign the attendance book. That 
is a wonderful record, and thetfe is not a man 
present—including myself—who can in any way 
approach it. (Cheers). 

“Mr. Williams, we are all sorry to lose you. 
I regret that the terms of your service do not 
admit of any pension, but the directors have 
much pleasure in requesting you to accept this 
cheque for £100 as a mark of their apprecia¬ 
tion of your services. That, perhaps, will 
suffice for present needs, but if you should re- 
[ 156 ] 


EXPIATION 


quire other temporary work in the city, let me 
know. Though it cannot be, I regret to say, in 
the Vulcan owing to new regulations, you may 
always count upon my warm recommendation 
for anything that may be going. (Cheers). 

“And now Mr. Williams, it gives me even 
greater pleasure to hand you this carriage 
clock. It has been subscribed for by your 
fellow clerks from the oldest in the depart¬ 
ment, down to the latest comer, and it is a 
token of regard, respect and admiration for 
the man who, with rare modesty, has set them 
all an example of steadiness, good conduct, 
and devotion to duty. It bears the inscription: 
‘James Williams. In memory of 1889-1916. 
From friends and well-wishers in the Vulcan 
Insurance Office.’ The world often seems black, 
life inexplicable, and mankind hard and indif¬ 
ferent, but let to-day’s little ceremony convince 
you, Mr. Williams, that the world is not so 
black as it looks, and that wherever in any 
body of men collected together, there appears 
a man who is upright in character, considerate 
in demeanour, unswervingly devoted to the ideal 
of duty, there, deep down in the hearts of the 
others, that man is respected, appreciated and 
beloved!” (Loud cheers). 

Now Heaven help me, help! What sort of 
[157] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


a boor was I that but a moment before be¬ 
lieved that these men had parted from me with¬ 
out a word or a handshake. O world so full of 
mystery, where yet the heart of the average 
man is so often a pearl of great price! 
Mirabilia opera tua , Domine! But now Heaven 
help! for the flood-gates are about to burst. 
I shall certainly break down. My throat is 
all parched. I cannot, I cannot bear up 
another moment. I must really go. 

“Three cheers for Jimmy Williams! hip! 

hip!-” cried the young shrill voice of a 

junior. And three cheers were given, and three 
cheers more, and good-natured laughter 
mingled with the shouts. 

“For he’s a jolly good fellow!” intoned the 
same young voice, evidently much pleased 
with his first success, and the old song was 
sung and lustily re-sung. The cheers, the song, 
the laughter and jokes, saved me for the 
moment. I was able to go from one to the 
other, shaking hands with broken words of 
thanks. The manager was quite moved: “Good¬ 
bye, Williams; God bless you!” he said, and 
“Good-bye, old chap, awfully sorry you’re 
going!” said the youngest member of the staff. 

“Shoulder him! Shoulder him!” shouted 
the same born leader of men—may he live to 
[ 158 ] 



EXPIATION 


be general manager!—There was a loud shout 
of delight, and I was hoisted shoulder high and 
carried in triumph down to the basement to 
the words of an old song slightly adapted for 
the occasion. “When Jimmy comes marching 
home!” 

I was deeply moved and shaken. The flood¬ 
gates had almost reached bursting point. 
When I got out into Fenchurch Street, I felt 
that I must hurry, hurry home, at full speed 
if I wished to avoid a breakdown, and I began 
to run. I was carrying the clock by the leather 
strap of its case. A gust of wind took my hat 
off. Never mind—let it go. I must hurry, 
hurry home. I must not faint here in the 
street, I must not break down, here in 
Aldgate, into the uncontrollable fit of sobbing 
and weeping that was whirling round me and 
coming, coming, oh, so fast! I got off the 
pavement and ran in the street, among the 
traffic, along Whitechapel High Street, along 
Whitechapel Road. I saw an amateur detec¬ 
tive call a policeman’s attention to me. 
Heavens ! Of course, hatless and scared, I must 
look like a thief. I quickened my pace in panic 
and ran on, on, now down Cambridge Street, 
then down one turning after another until I 
reached the turning leading to Meadows Lane. 

[ 169 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

At last, at last, I am at the corner. No, in my 
blind flight I have taken a wrong turning and 
have come out at the other end, opposite the 
little iron church of the Holy Name. Never 
mind. In five minutes I shall be home, home, 
and then O dear Lord, O kind and loving 
Master. Suddenly I felt a strong pair of arms 
go round me like an iron vice, and looking up, 
I saw a blue lamp with the words in white 
letters, Police Station. I went inside unresist¬ 
ingly. The game was up. Happen what might, 
I could do no more. The clock was taken from 
me, and I was led into the chargeroom and put 
inside a kind of dock. All self-control left me. 
The flood-gates burst, and I fell forward on the 
ledge of the dock, sobbing and weeping, weeping 
and sobbing, as if there were no end to grief. 
But it was gratitude all the time, gratitude 
to God for His love and acknowledgment of so 
poor a servant, and gratitude to my fellow- 
men who, with so rare a loving-kindness, had 
met together to honour a pauper and an out¬ 
cast. O great is the heart of my brother, 
natwraliter Catholicus, and rich are the treas¬ 
ures that are laid up therein! What wilt Thou 
do, O Lord, to honour those who have delighted 
to honour Thy servant, though but a pauper- 
[ 160 ] 


EXPIATION 


rimus seroulus and abjectus vermiculus? 1 O 
that I might lead them from the Confusion 
where they are so content to the Order where 
they would be thrice blessed! There, where I 
am going, in that secluded and holy Solitude 
in Italy, I will ask prayers for them that I 
know are acceptable in Thy sight! 

The waters subsided slowly: the Dove ap¬ 
peared, bringing peace. The Inspector was a 
patient man, but he now said sharply: “Name 
please?” Then began my examination: how had 
I come by the carriage clock? “Send for Father 
Jones over the way,” I said; “he knows I am 
James Williams, he knows I am a clerk in the 
Vulcan, he knows I have been there twenty- 
seven years. He doesn’t know that I was going 
to have a presentation to-day, but then neither 
did I myself.” 

Father Jones was sent for, the Inspector 
was easily satisfied, and I was able to go to 
my own home. In this dingy little lean-to 
against the Walls of Sion I had served God for 
twenty-seven years, and it had become dear 
to me. I was grieved to leave it, and I was 
grieved, too, to leave Father Phil, the only 
being in all this time who had been anything 
like an acquaintance. I must have been to Con- 
1 Imit . Christi , iii, 3, 6. 

[ 161 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


fession to him something like one thousand 
four hundred times. He was now fifty-two years 
of age, and by herculean efforts, in the midst 
of the stoniest indifference, the subscription 
list had now mounted up to £2,011 9s. lOd. 
One thing I could do: I had saved about £95. 
All I required was £50 to pay my long out¬ 
standing debt to Casauban, some new clothes 
and a second-class ticket to Italy. So I gave 
him my cheque for £100 for his church. His 
face of incredulity, amazement and delight, was 
as pleasant a sight as ever I saw in my life. 

“All the same, you hardened old sceptic,” 
he went on, “I don’t believe you think I shall 
ever get the whole sum. But you’ve broken 
the spell: the list ’ll get a move on now. Why, 
less than £2,500' ’ll do it! Besides, I’ve got 
someone up my sleeve.” 

“A noble lord, I suppose?” 

“Well, not exactly. Say a noble lady. 
But closely related to a very noble lord. As 
you know, things leak through to Meadows 
Lane pretty slowly. I’ve only just had the 
Histoire d’une ame lent me, and I finished it 
last night. Sceur Therese of Lisieux is the 
name of my noble lady. She has said: ‘je veux 
passer mon ciel a faire du bien sur la terre.’ 
I’ve put the whole thing in her hands. What, 
[ 162 ] 


EXPIATION 


still sceptical! Well, you must admit she hasn’t 
made a bad beginning!” And he held up my 
cheque in triumph. 

Good-bye, dear Father Phil, you beaming, 
incorrigible, toiling optimist! People out in 
the land of Confusion with new ideas and big 
notions would call you commonplace and in¬ 
significant,—only the men, women and children 
of your sweated, slave-driven district could 
plumb a heart of gold such as yours. Well 
for Mother Church that she has many like you, 
given for life to the poor, whose only solace 
is a pipe, whose only recreation is a penny¬ 
reading got up to amuse other people: these 
unknown soldiers in the army of the King 
hold a bastion of the Divine City that legions 
of devils could never storm! 


[ 163 ] 


CHAPTER VIII 

A PLACE IN THE SUN 

And now you see how it happens that I 
have come out here to end my days in a place 
in the sun, as I call it. It was great happiness 
to see Casauban again. I found him changed, 
all shyness and awkwardness gone, and very 
far advanced in the spiritual life. But he 
recognised that some of his early efforts had 
been undertaken, so he averred, without suffi¬ 
cient reference to the Will of God. More 
especially was he convinced that he should never 
in these days have attempted a form of the 
solitary life which cut him off from daily com¬ 
munion. The form of his early life was good 
in itself, at fault only in its great distance 
from a church. He would much sooner have 
exposed himself to frequent interruptions and 
annoyances, than have cut himself off from that 
daily communion which the terrible pressure of 
the modern world has made almost essential to 
a recollected life. 

* * * * * 

You will be interested to hear that Casauban 
[ 164 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


left his beloved Solitude early in 1915 and 
went to London, age about fifty-seven, to see 
if there was any “bit” that he could do for 
the country. To my mind this is the finest 
act of his noble life. With the exception of 
two very old men, the other Solitaries all 
followed his example. Casauban got a job as 
special constable and kept it for a year, when 
he was sent back to Italy by the service doc¬ 
tor owing to acute rheumatism which had 
developed. He then offered the Solitude and 
the villa to the Italian Government for any 
purpose it might choose, and it was turned into 
a convalescent hospital for Italian officers. 
Casauban contributed handsomely to the ex¬ 
penses, and Giovanni ran it for him; Dr. 
Castelfranchi, invalided home from the front, 
was medical officer in charge, and Don Costanzo 
was the chaplain. The experiment was a con¬ 
spicuous success, and Casauban finds himself 
to his unlimited surprise a Commendatore of 
St. Maurice and St. Lazarus by motu proprio 
of the King. Best of all, Giovanni was made 
a Cavaliere of the Crown of Italy, and all 
the people round now call him Signor Cavaliere. 
Trust the Italian Government to make gracious 
acknowledgment of services rendered to it. 

# * * * * 

[ 165 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


I found Casauban now no longer averse 
from developing the property which lay outside 
the inclosure. It gave work to people, and 
provided sustenance for his guests, the Soli¬ 
taries. About a mile and a half from here we 
have built a little village of sixteen white 
cottages. You must come out and see what 
we can do in the way of cultivation. I have 
Giovanni for my right-hand man, one of the 
straightest human beings I ever met. Between 
us, I think, we’ve got things pretty ship-shape. 
I have got proper books going by double 
entry, for there’s quite a lot to do, and a big 
turnover. We shall start in printing books 
soon at the Sambuca press. I seem fated to 
be mixed up with books. Since you knew him, 
Giovanni has condescended to get married, 
a girl chosen with great care and some cere¬ 
mony from the most respectable family of 
his native place. Now that we have a village 
community, he thought a wife would be useful 
in keeping the womenfolk up to the mark. 

As for myself, perhaps Casauban was a 
little disappointed that I did not adopt the 
solitary life as it is led here. But he soon 
convinced himself that I was utterly unsuited 
to it, and never intended for it. I, of course, 
appreciate the opportunity of daily Mass and 
[ 166 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 

daily communion under such perfect condi¬ 
tions, but I was more at home and ease in 
the little corrugated iron shelter in Meadows 
Lane, E. Era Antonio is the most marvellous 
of living guides to the spiritual life—has he 
not accomplished the wonder of persuading 
me to have my life written?—but Father Phil’s 
rapid exhortations—accompanied by an occa¬ 
sional shove—were enough to keep me straight 
and strong. I have called this place a place 
in the sun, and so it is; but it has its peni¬ 
tential side for me: to wit, the utter creepy 
stillness. Of course I had hours of complete 
silence in my late life, but passed in the 
invigorating, bracing atmosphere of bustle and 
noise. I miss the hurry and scurry, the 
rattle and roar, the shouts and cries of London 
town. And I miss the dancing children and the 
piano-organs: not so much as a pifferaro or a 
performing monkey ever comes near us here. 
But at all events I’ve plenty of good and use¬ 
ful work; itself a means of sanctification, as 
the Solitary is the first to admit. 

***** 

I hope you feel a shade of interest in my 
dear Father Phil. Just one thing about him 
in parenthesis. Soon after my arrival I told 
[ 167 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Casauban of his twenty-seven years struggle 
to build a church to the Holy Name, and asked 
him for an offering. He promised to look into 
ways and means, and give what he could. 
The next day he said simply in his laconic 
fashion: “I don’t know whether you know 
my system, but I don’t consider that I have 
any right to invest savings, so I give them 
away. I haven’t touched last year’s savings 
yet, so I can easily spare this. I like nothing 
so much as completing a good work which has 
been begun.” He put into my hands a cheque 
for £2,500. Father Phil’s noble lady had 
stood him in good stead and the little optimist 
had triumphed. I should like to have seen the 
result of £2,500 on his cherubic countenance. 
See, here is a photograph of the grand new 
church which was consecrated last month. I 
speak of it as “the cathedral” when I write, 
and of him as the Bishop of the East End. 
But, as I’ve told him, I do think it as well 
that the Congregation of Rites should keep an 
eye on him, and prevent him breaking out into 
premature altars to his “noble lady.” And I 
should like to have heard the panegyric of her 
which he preached in his own new church for a 
collection for the promotion of her cause! 

* * * * * 

[ 168 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


You have undertaken the unpleasant task of 
writing my life, so I suppose you will have to 
say something of its lessons. Our good Padre 
particularly wishes this. Do not fail to bring 
out strongly the immense advantages I had. 
Unless these are fully understood, the enormity 
of my sin, the magnitude of my fall, cannot 
be properly realised. I had been so well 
schooled, so beneficently enlightened, that 
nothing could excuse my sudden blindness. 
I remember a French priest quoting in a 
sermon some words of Joseph de Maistre which 
remain with me to this day. “L’homme,” he 
said, “pour se conduire, n’a pas besoin de 
problemes, mais de croyances. Son berceau 
doit etre environne de dogmes; et lorsque sa 
raison se reveille il faut qu’il trouve toutes ses 
opinions faites, du moins sur tout ce qui a 
rapport a sa conduite.” 1 This expresses ex¬ 
actly my case, and explains my success and 
happiness until I was overtaken by criminal 
madness. I heard nothing of problems, but 
much of positive beliefs. My cradle, my 
nursery, my school, my home life,—all were 
“environne de dogmes.” From the first use of 
reason I found all my opinions as to right and 

1 These words occur at the beginning of Chapter X 
of the Etude sur la SouveraintS. 

[ 169 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


wrong ready made. They corresponded to the 
conscience within me, to the very needs of my 
being. I could not then, I cannot now, imagine a 
possible existence on this terrestrial globe under 
any other conditions. A solution of the prob¬ 
lems which are distracting and weakening the 
modern world, would not bring with it a higher 
or more chivalrous code of virtue than that of 
the Catholic Church: very much the contrary. 
If I begin to worry about problems instead of 
acting on revelation, my will weakens, my 
action becomes halting, my intellect clouded, 
the practice of Christian virtue peters out: 
I break up, and fall to pieces in the outside 
world of disorder. Problems encourage an 
easy life, for it is always possible for their 
votaries to say: I have not yet proved that 
it is rational voluntarily to incur such incon- 
veniencies, or that it is moral cheerfully to 
submit to such rigorous discipline. From all 
this misery Almighty God most mercifully 
delivered me. But not even in the dark days 
of the eclipse did I ever justify wrong and 
believe it to be right. All this I owe to my 
advantages. 

In writing my life you will, among other 
things, have to refer pretty often to the Will 
of God. I don’t envy you. That august ex- 
[170] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


pression has come to be associated with the 
worst form of unctuous cant. It makes good 
fellows shudder and look the other way. All 
those horrible D.V. people haven’t the slight¬ 
est wish to do what God has ordained for them: 
their devout hope is merely that nothing will 
prevent them doing what they want. I will 
not enlarge, but one almost wishes that this 
sublime, momentous subject could be spoken 
of by some other term. 

Perhaps one lesson comes out rather clearly 
from my life: that every man may learn what 
God has ordained his life to be—i.e. the Will 
of God—at least in its broad significance. 
People to-day—and Catholic folk among them 
-—take up professions and change residences 
from town to town, from home to abroad, 
without the slightest regard to whether God 
has ordained that they are to adopt such and 
such a profession, or to live in such and such a 
town or country. It is absolutely essential that 
a man should know to what profession he has 
been ordained by God’s ordinance: the town or 
country usually goes with the profession. The 
certain rule is to accept the profession that 
comes to us. Here a man will find his call. 
But as each case has to be considered on its 
merits, it is almost impossible to do more than 
[ 171 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

lay down a general rule. In my own case I 
made no choice of a profession: (my own 
hankering was after fighting), a clerkship came 
to me in a natural way owing to former family 
connections with the bank. It was not even 
sought by my father, but offered to him to his 
great surprise. Absolutely nothing else was 
on the horizon. I had the ability and the 
bent necessary. How could I or my father 
doubt that the choice, the ordinance, was 
God’s. And this was the reason he gave me 
for submitting. A greater care than formerly 
is necessary in exercising choice, or rather 
acceptance: for the weakening hold of the 
Christian religion has done much to enfeeble 
in mankind the good sense which used to mark 
the Christian’s regulation of practical life. 
But once placed in a profession by God’s 
ordinance, the Christian keeps close to it. 
“The perfect Christian,” says Rosmini, “makes 
no change for the mere purpose of present 
satisfaction. . . . He loves not change . . . 
he has no thought of change unless he knows 
it to be according to the Will of God. . . . 
This constancy, this unchangeableness of the 
Christian in the condition wherein he is placed, 
forms men who are thoroughly acquainted with 
their state, men who love it, and know how 
[ 172 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


to discharge all its duties . . . the first thing 
which the Will of God lays down for him is 
to fulfill with fidelity, exactness, and alacrity, 
all the duties of his state. ...” 2 A man’s 
profession, in fact, is the touchstone, as it 
were, of God’s Will with regard to him even 
in other matters. Pere Caussade says: “Mais, 
pour ne s’ecarter ni a droite ni a gauche, il 
faut que l’ame ne suive aucune inspiration 
qu’elle croirait avoir re9ue de Dieu, avant de 
s’etre assuree que cette inspiration ne l’eloigne 
point des devoirs de son etat. Ces devoirs sont 
la manifestation la plus certaine de l’ordre de 
Dieu, et rein ne leur doit etre prefere. . . ,” 3 
There is another thing in which the Will of 
God is also made very plain to a man—the 
choice of the woman with whom he is to con¬ 
summate the Holy Sacrament of Marriage. 
But here, now-a-days, far more than in the 
choice of a profession, a man acts without 
reference to God, and follows his own choice. 
We know what that means, and we see it re¬ 
flected in the misery and crime with which the 
wedded state of to-day is stained. And yet 
there is a certain and easy rule by which a 
man may know whether his bride has been 

a Maxim* of Perfection, pp. 32, 33, 43. 

• L*.Abandon a la Providence, ed. 1886, p. 16. 

[ 173 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


given to him from on High—the rule I went 
by—Love. Love comes to him in his teens, at 
its best it will come to him at first sight; 
its first strong rays are spiritual, the human 
element appears only in the second place. 
This is the great, the pure love of man for 
woman, but how may that love be known 
among nations where the sacrament is un¬ 
known, and where second marriages are en¬ 
couraged rather than abhorred. I sound as 
if I were preaching, and certainly if I had ever 
thought of lecturing, marriage a sacrament and 
love a sacramental would have been a favourite 
and constant theme of mine. 

In the art or profession, in the married 
state and home life, in God’s commandments 
and the Church’s, may be found sufficient evi¬ 
dences of the Will of God with regard to our 
ordinary lives. And if we follow His Will we 
live in His Order. If I go against His Will, 
I fall out of this Order into an outside place 
of Confusion. My will and His clash, and I 
go under. The whole of the great unthinking 
modern world is obviously a weltering con¬ 
fusion of human beings locked in a struggle 
for life outside God’s Order. This confusion 
and struggle has grown greater and greater 
since the War, and naturally, seeing that the 
[174] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


whole of the monstrous War was absolutely 
opposed to God’s Will and Ordinance. It 
seems a vain thing to appeal to the generality 
in the present welter to seek and find out the 
Will of God. But the Catholic man should 
more than ever wait on this high manifesta¬ 
tion and seek it out. It can be done. And its 
blessedness far exceeds the world’s happiness. 
I think the story of my life proves all this. 

I was influenced, as I think I have told you, 
from my earliest years by the belief that the 
day’s happenings, however trivial, were all part 
of Vaction de Dieu, that in them I could find 
sufficient mortification, abounding sanctifica¬ 
tion, and a rule of conduct. And this came 
to me through Pere Caussade from my incom¬ 
parable mother. “Action de mon Dieu!” he 
cries, “vous etes mon livre . . . ce n’est pas 
en consultant vos autres ouvrages que je 
deviendrai ce que vous voulez faire de moi; 
c’est en vous recevant en toutes choses par 
cette unique voie royale. . . . Ce que Dieu 
fait a chaque moment, c’est une pensee divine 
signifiee par une chose creee; ainsi toutes 
celles ou il nous intime sa volonte, sont autant 
de noms et autant de paroles ou il nous montre 
son desir. . . . Ah! vous cherchez l’idee de 
Dieu, et vous avez la substance; vous cherchez 
[175] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


la perfection, et elle est dans tout ce qui se 
presente a vous de soi-meme. Vos souffrances, 
vos actions, vos attraits sont des especes sous 
lesquelles Dieu se donne a vous par soi-meme, 
pendant que vous tendez vainement a des idees 
sublimes, dont il ne veut point se revetir chez 
vous. . . . Tout ce qui se fait dans nous, 
autour de nous, et par nous, renferme et couvre 
son action divine. Elle est la tres r£ellement 
et tres certainement presente, mais d’une 
presence invisible: ce qui fait que nous sommes 
toujours surpris, et que nous ne connaissons 
son operation que lorsqu’elle ne subsiste plus 
Si nous percions le voile, et si nous etions 
vigilants et attentifs, Dieu se revelerait sans 
cesse a nous, et nous jouirions de son action 
en tout ce qui nous arrive. A chaque chose 
nous dirions: dominus est: c’est le Seigneur! 
et nous trouverions dans toutes les circon- 
stances que nous recevons un don de Dieu!” 4 
I had been taught by my mother as a child 
to say domintjs est to everything that hap¬ 
pened. She did me a beautiful large illuminated 
card of these words which hung over my bed 
in the nursery as a reminder, and has been 
about with me everywhere, ever since. For 
four years I turned its face to the wall, that I 
4 Abandon, pp. 42, 43, 110, 22. 

[ 176 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 

might not be reminded. When all went well 
with me through the day I would forget the 
meaning of the words, characteristically 
enough, but when I was afflicted, or punished 
through creatures, I recognised Him at once 
and would cry dominus est! Oh, if on that 
tragic night when I learnt that Cressida had 
left me for ever, if holding fast to reason, good 
sense and faith, I could but have uttered, even 
in accents of despair, the dear, familiar cry of 
dominus est. He would assuredly have folded 
me in His arms until the hurricane had passed. 
There in the near neighbourhood of His heart, 
I should have heard Him rebuke the winds, and 
to the waves say: “Peace, be still,” and there I 
should have learnt in the great calm which fol¬ 
lowed that He did but require me to wait, and 
watch, and work with Him for the deliverance 
of my bride. Through His human nature He 
has become so much our comrade that He will 
have us share with Him, as a knight his squire, 
in the work He does for our welfare. If one 
man do another a great wrong, it is in vain that 
he pray God to right it if he does not himself 
work with God to that end. Only when a man 
is broken in every limb and lies helpless, will 
He bear the whole burden and carry . He did 
but ask for four years of patience, faith, hope 
[177] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


and prayer, to make me a worthier bridegroom 
when my bride should have been delivered from 
the city of Confusion. 

Another lesson I believe I have learnt in life, 
and that is how to take it. I can be no less 
alive than other ordinary mortals to the diffi¬ 
culties of belief, to the darkness and confusion 
of the world, to the question why man and the 
universe were made, why evil exists and so 
forth. Although I am without letters, I believe 
I could pile up arguments with the best of 
them, not certainly to build up a posi¬ 
tive system, but at least to advocate a complete 
scepticism. Only then I am confronted by my¬ 
self. And I am confronted by virtue and vice, 
and the effects of both upon me. I cannot get 
away from virtue and vice, so I must have a 
system if I am to choose between them. What 
if the system be blind, naked faith, I find that 
it alone, speaking in the name of an ever-living 
Judge, approves the one and condemns the other, 
as I understand them. This blind faith is 
offered me by a Church, and the existence of 
virtue and vice compels me with gratitude to 
accept her gift. The existence of evil does not 
throw me off the track, for I see that the 
wrong which He permits never harms the man 
who does the right which He ordains. The 
[178] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


reason why the Catholic man pursues the even 
tenor of his busy way, unaffected in his funda¬ 
mental beliefs by the arguments and discoveries 
of the eager world, is simply due to the fact 
that he has solved what seems to him the mighti¬ 
est problem of them all: he has elected virtue 
and reprobated vice. With the magic talis¬ 
man of this standard, there is revealed to him 
the whole scheme of faith and God’s most 
blessed Order. I never in my life did anything 
wrong, but what it was wholly and entirely 
my own fault, mea culpa , mea maxima culpa . 
That applies to every living soul; it is all man 
needs to know, and when he acknowledges this 
as a fact, unfathomable mysteries will sit lightly 
upon him. God’s ways with the individual soul 
are no abyss: 5 it is only in their general work¬ 
ing that they are past finding out. Everywhere 
in the general scheme of the universe there is 
handwriting, only it is in a cypher of which 
we do not possess the decypher. Small matter 
to the individual, for within his heart the hand¬ 
writing of God is in capital letters which every 
child who runs may read. But he often prefers 
to waste time over the problems of a cypher 
which oan never be decyphered, and so the 
imperious call within to a changed course of 
5 Psalm xxv, Judioia Dei abyssus multa. 

[ 179 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


life becomes void and of no effect. Man, at 
his best, cries aloud and hungers for a posi¬ 
tive system such as the Catholic Christian 
holds, but he is not straight in his dealings with 
God; he chaffers and will not pay the price, 
which is the practice of the whole range of the 
Christian virtues. Give me virtue, he cries 
admiringly with the young Augustine, sed noli 
modo , but not yet: the price is too heavy; I 
cannot pay till I am older . 6 And so he loses 
his chance. It is a question of conduct alone, 
not of argument or evidence, which keeps men 
from the positive system of the Church. Only 
the desire of Christian virtue can light up the 
torch of faith, only its practice screen the 
flame from extinction by every wind of passion. 
Let mortification wait on fervent prayer, and 
the virtue of holy discretion on both, and the 
torch of Faith will instantly take fire. I never 
yet knew the man who thought himself into the 
Church: there is no other way but to work him¬ 
self in by the best deeds he knows. And so I 
never yet knew the man who thought himself 
out of the Church: he goes out into the outer 
confusion only by capitulation to some of the 
opposites of Christian virtue. The Catholic 
Christian hears without perturbation of the 
6 Confessions, viii. 7. 


[ 180 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


uncomprehended mysteries that go along with 
Faith, so long as he do but have and hold a 
comprehended vision of the sanctity which the 
Church sets before him. He acknowledges with 
Pere Caussade, that the letter of God’s Book 
of the Universe kills, and so he looks instead 
to its spirit which giveth life. Before you can 
turn him from the Faith, you must first lower 
his standard of virtue. Virtue is Faith’s great 
appeal, and vice her unanswerable argu¬ 
ment. . . . Well, I must say you’ve stood my 
preaching uncommonly well, but here endeth 
this sermon,—at all events for to-day. 

# * # * * 

And now, dear Mauldsley, I think my story 
has been sufficiently told to satisfy the exi¬ 
gencies of Fra Antonio. Thanks, a thousand 
thanks, for your patience and goodwill. When 
you write, be brief; I have been carried away 
to dwell too much on family history,—please 
don’t bore people with my ancestors. I don’t 
want my portrait painted: a rapid outline 
sketch will more than suffice. If you think good 
can come to a single soul from knowledge of a 
life I would rather have hidden in my grave, 
then publish when the right time comes. Do 
you and Casauban decide. 

[181 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

I cannot be long for this world. It is 
strange, late in life, to make a friend, but in 
you I feel that I have acquired a true friend 
on the brink of the grave. Will you, then, do 
me one great service, and also be the executor 
of my few last wishes? The service I ask you 
needs a little explanation. Adrian, the 17th 
Lord Cleresby, died in 1913. His two brothers 
are both since dead: Colonel Peregrine 

Mavourez was in the English army, the first 
to serve in the regular army since the abdica¬ 
tion of James II. He was killed at Ypres. 
The other brother, Richard, died young as a 
Lazarist missionary in North Borneo. Adrian 
had two sons, Simon, 18th Lord, and Carlos, 
who was a sub-deacon when the War broke out. 
Simon enlisted as a private in August 1914; 
Carlos 5 ordination was hurried on, and he came 
out to the front as an assistant chaplain. 
Simon was killed at the battle of the Marne, 
and Carlos, Lord Cleresby, succumbed to trench 
fever in June 1916. I succeeded, though no 
man knew it. I was actually the last Lord 
Cleresby during the final six months of my life 
as a super. Leave was given to presume my 
death, and Cleresby Castle and Mavourez-Mel- 
combe passed to the heiress, Mary Cecilia, sister 
of Adrian, 17th Lord, who is married to Mr. 

[ 182 ] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 

Brian O’Neill of Castle Kilgorran, County 
Tipperary. Now what I want you to do for 
me when I am dead, is to send proof of my 
death and identity to my cousin Cecilia, so that 
she and her successors may enjoy their in¬ 
heritance on grounds of certainty and no longer 
of presumption. Since our name and estates 
had to pass to the foreigner, I am glad that he 
is of the Irish race. Its men are brave and 
chivalrous, and round its women plays the 
lambent flame of purity which graced the brides 
of Cleresby. In the past, too, the Mavourez 
have fought for the kings of Ireland, and no¬ 
tably at the Boyne Water, where Ensign 
Lorenzo Mavourez was killed and two of his 
brothers wounded. 

* * * * * 

As to my last few wishes, if you will be so 
generous as to carry them out for me, they are 
these: Let me be buried at the foot of the 
sward before dear Casauban’s cottage. I 
don’t mind a slab of stone or marble over me: 
a visible memorial will remind the Solitaries 
on their walks to and fro to pray for me who 
so much need prayers. But let the one word 
Christopher alone be cut in the stone: no 
date, please: no hint as to who I was. I have 
[183] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

saved enough out of the small salary I accepted 
here, to pay all my expenses. The little picture 
done by my mother of the Child I saw in the 
skies high over the Rhine is for Cressida So 
is the large illuminated card with the words 
dominus est. Ask that it be hung in the room 
where my mother was born in the Villa Cavalca, 
now called by the happier name of Villa Bona. 
Of my six copies of the Imitation I would like 
the Latin one to go to Fra Antonio, the Fench 
to Casauban, the Italian to Giovanni: he is no 
more a reader than I am, but, poor chap, he 
will like to have a memento. We have been 
very happy in our work together. Then I love 
and revere where he adores: that is another 
bond of union. The Flemish copy is for you; 
the English for Father Phil Jones. Send the 
German copy, please, to Cressida: like me, she 
ever loved that moving and most lyrical 
language. Let her, too, have the copy of Pere 
Caussade with my mother’s name written in it: 
Bona Cavalca. My copy of St. Gideon 
Mavourez: Crusader and Anchorite is for the 
Sambuca Library. My old Garden of the Soul , 
with all the santini in it, have buried with me, 
please: veterans both of us, perhaps we are a 
little out-of-date. My clothes, such as they 
are, are for friends in our little village. For 
[184] 


A PLACE IN THE SUN 


them, too, please, any few soldi that may be 
over. Do you distribute as you think best: 
Giovanni will advise. With this, I think I have 
exhausted my largesse. Surely never was Peer 
of the Realm at his last end so closely attended 
by my Lady Poverty. 

* * * * * 

Dear Mauldsley, I am well declined into the 
vale of years: sixty-four the other day. The 
evening of life must surely be drawing to a 
close. I have felt more at ease since you came 
out, for you will take my place and relieve our 
dear friend of the practical side of this 
wonderful place. Yes, wonderful it is, even to 
me, and its deep peace to-day seems to speak 
of the everlasting rest. As the narrow way 
approaches to its end, it widens a little; the 
going gets a bit easier; until at last it becomes 
a spacious, restful piazza before the golden 
gates of the New Jerusalem. On either side 
of it run green pastures; in the middle of it 
plays the fountain of water springing up into 
everlasting life. The glory of Lebanon is there; 
the beauty of Carmel and Sharon; the dew of 
Mount Hermon. All around, each in his place 
in the Sun of Righteousness, resting awhile 
after long toil, sit God’s pensioners, awaiting 
[185] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


the day when the golden gates shall open to 
them and disclose the Everlasting Light. 
Exultant in Domino : I can hear the hymn of 
the octogenarian priest, Jesus , il est temps de 
nous voir? I can hear the Quousque Domine, 
the psalm of the Solitary, already conjoined to 
his Lord in intimate fruition. Here, too, have 
I crawled; here sat me down, and He has not 
said me nay. And here I will continue to sit 
until my noble and most bountiful Master shall 
take me by the hand and, after I know not what 
purgation, lead me into the new, and active, 
and blessed life, where I shall dwell for ever in 
the Presence of Him Who liveth and reigneth, 
One God, world without end. “If it be now ’tis 
not to come; if it be not to come it will be now; 
if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness 
is all.” 

7 Mgr. Baunard’s Vieux Prdtre. 


[ 186 ] 


CHAPTER IX 


REQUIEM ^ETERNAM 

He died without illness or suffering of any 
sort, being found in his bed like one most peace¬ 
fully asleep. It was his habit to rise at six, 
and attend the seven o’clock Mass. Giovanni 
missed him there, and went at once in search of 
him. 

Poor Casauban was deeply moved. “ ‘There 
cracks a noble heart,’ ” he said. Christopher 
had taken off his beard soon after my arrival, 
and this helped to bring out the beauty and 
nobility of his face to the full. He looked as 
if in the act of death he might have caught 
some notes of the heavenly music that visited 
him in his prison cell so many years ago. 
“ ‘Good-night, sweet friend,’ ” said Casauban, 
quoting that Hamlet which was so often on 
Christopher’s lips, “ ‘good-night, and flights of 
angels sing thee to thy rest.’ But we must act 
without loss of time,” he went on. “I have 
exchanged rare letters with Miss Vaughan. 
Through me, she knows him to be here, at 
[187] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

peace and content in his life and work. She 
lives almost exclusively at the Villa Bona now, 
and is certain to be there this glorious month 
of May. To think of it: it must be nearly 
forty-six years since they met, an ardent boy 
and radiant girl, in that old city schoolroom. 
Both have bravely borne tragic sorrow: both 
have nobly endured a heavy expiation. The 
Verruca cannot be much more than a hundred 
kilometers from here. I will write her a note 
and send Giovanni himself over for her in the 
motor. I am sure she would wish to be here. 
There will be plenty of time for her to get back 
here by this evening. We will bury him to¬ 
morrow morning, there where he asked, on the 
edge of the sward in front of my cottage. I 
will have the big statue of St. Augustine, his 
patron, which is on the other side of the wood, 
moved over and placed at the head of his grave. 
Dr. Castelfranchi will be here at nine o’clock: 
he will certify to the death. The body must 
be dressed, as custom requires, in a full suit of 
clothes: the contadini would not understand our 
simple winding-sheet. We will place the coffin 
open in the church, and to-morrow morning’s 
Mass before the funeral shall be coram 
cadavere. Listen! Listen!” The church bell 
had begun to toll, and each Solitary, as if upon 
[ 188 ] 


REQUIEM iETERNAM 


a given signal, was tolling the bell outside his 
cottage. The echoing woods and valleys j oined 
in the mourning for his transitus. “Let us go 
and do our part,” said Casauban, “though joy- 
bells would be more in place for ono whose 
presence is so desired by the heavenly Child!” 

* * * * * 

Cressida arrived at five o’clock in the after¬ 
noon. We had heard the motor signalling in 
the valley below, and Casauban and I were 
waiting outside the villa to receive her. 
Giovanni’s wife had also been told to be in wait¬ 
ing. Cressida alighted quietly from the motor, 
and I was immediately introduced to her. 
“How good of you,” she said to Casauban; 
“how thoughtful of you to send for me. May 
I see him ?” 

“Of course. Of course. But first go in and 
rest a little. This is Teresina, my fattore’s 
wife. She will look after you and get you some 
tea.” 

It was wonderful to me to see Cressida, 
having so recently heard her story. I was at 
once struck by the absence of all signs of age, 
grief or weariness. The rich, red-gold hair 
was only sparsely strewn with silver threads; 
the face was without the wrinkles of age; her 
[189] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


step was light and quick; her figure slim and 
youthful. The clear, blue eyes were restful and 
at peace. 

“What a lovely place!” she said as we went 
up the steps of the perron. “What a heavenly 
spot to die in. How easy the ascent to Heaven 
from here. I know this place from Mr. 
Mauldsley’s book. Ever since I read it, I have 
wanted to do for women what Mr. Casauban 
has done for men. I have an idea—but all 
confused. You will let me consult you before I 
leave, will you not?” 

In a quarter of an hour she rejoined us, and 
we walked towards the Inclosure. There was 
no monastic rule to prevent her entrance. We 
went into the church together. The coffin was 
lying open on its bier: three tall yellow tapers 
were burning on either side of it. Cressida 
placed a hand on each ridge of the coffin, and 
bent low over it. “Oh, what a beautiful face,” 
she said quietly. “So good, so good. He was 
good through and through. His one thought 
was to be good. And he was so humble, too; so 
simple. Really and truly humble, in spite of 
his great strength and splendid intelligence. 
How young he looks, a boy. His spirit was 
always fresh and boyish, in sympathy with all 
living things. What a noble face! He looks 
[190] 


REQUIEM JETERNAM 


like the true descendant of that heroic family 
which gave so many knights and cavaliers to 
their country, so many saints and steadfast 
martyrs to the church. Their magnanimous 
souls were ever with causes of which the world 
was unworthy. Father Charles Bouverie of the 
Oratory, who was a clerk with him in the early 
days at the bank, told me that he owed his 
conversion and vocation entirely to Chris, and 
would have lost his way in life but for Chris’s 
example. And all this although religion was 
never so much as mentioned between them. It 
was simply that he was so obviously good, and 
so happy with it, that other people must have 
wanted to be like him.” 

“I can say the same for myself,” replied 
Casauban. “But I was on the verge of founder¬ 
ing, when he came to my aid and drew me 
ashore. To me he did talk, because I first 
talked to him. But it was simply his life and 
himself so eloquent of virtue, order and good 
sense, that opened my eyes to the fact that I 
was living in confusion and peril. Who knows 
how many others his straight life and example 
may not have influenced. Yet he always 
thought that he had never converted or in¬ 
fluenced a soul. As Miss Vaughan has said, 
how truly humble he was !” 

[ 191 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


“It can never be known,” said Cressida, “how 
deeply he influenced me. I, too, owe my salva¬ 
tion to him. On our last meeting, he showed 
me, what I ought to have known, that no 
partial sacrifice could satisfy us, that a com¬ 
plete holocaust was expected of us. And he 
who was so active, yet directed my thoughts to 
the contemplative life, in which, however im¬ 
perfectly, I have found my vocation.” 

Cressida bent down and gazed again at the 
white face, sweet in its last quiet sleep. How 
I admired her composure and restfulness. It 
told how high her own soul had climbed. Her 
eyes were full, but not to overflowing. Teresina 
had prepared a large nosegay of violets for 
her room. She bore them with her now and laid 
them on his breast beside the battered old copy 
of the Garden of the Soul , just above the thin, 
white, tapering hands which held a crucifix and 
his old, well-worn Rosary. She moved away of 
her own accord, and we followed. I had 
dreaded her visit to Christopher’s coffin, but 
she had been so still and brave, so admirable in 
her noble grace and quiet dignity. 

At the head of the perron there were seats. 

“May I talk to you here a little?” she asked. 
“Have you time? I have had an idea in the 
last few years that I would like to devote the 
[192] 


REQUIEM iETERNAM 

Villa Bona to a Retreat for women who have 
a call to the solitary life, but not to a Religious 
Order. Separate cottages, such as you have 
here, w r ould be quite unsuited to women. The 
wise Carthusians never allowed their women 
more than the ordinary monastic cell. Each of 
my guests should have her two rooms. The big 
rooms of the villa would have to be cut up and 
adapted accordingly. The garden is perhaps 
not large enough, but I could greatly increase 
the Inclosure by throwing into it an adjoining 
bosco which belongs to me. I should, of course, 
continue to live there, and be responsible for 
the material side of the life. A difficulty will be 
to find the right spiritual guide, but if God 
approve the idea he will appear. A still greater 
difficulty might be to obtain the consent of the 
Ordinary. But I know him, and believe he will 
approve. The future certainly perplexes. 
How is ownership of the property to be carried 
on when I am gone? It is here, perhaps, where 
I need your good counsel most of all. But I 
will not trouble you to-night. You will think 
over all this, and let me talk again before I 
leave to-morrow.” 

At eight o’clock next morning the funeral 
Mass took place, the body being present in the 
open coffin. I obtained the privilege of acting 
[193] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


as server. As I have explained in The 
Solitaries of the Sambuca, 1 the church (SS. 
Paul and Anthony) is of peculiar design. Each 
Solitary has his shut-in stall, but they are 
divided at such an angle that they can see the 
altar without being seen. Here, unseen by any¬ 
one, they also receive Holy Communion. At the 
bottom of the church is a space railed off for 
the public; there knelt Cressida, with Dr. 
Castelfranchi, Giovanni and Teresina, the 
servants from the villa, the workers from our 
little village, and many people from Vicolo, the 
big village in the plain below. When the time 
came for Holy Communion, I attended the 
priest, as is the custom in this country, with a 
lighted candle. I would rather not have re¬ 
ferred to what followed, but it seems to me that 
I owe it to the memory of my dead friend. Be 
it imagination, be it overwrought nerves, as the 
Sacred Host was placed upon her lips, I saw 
very faintly and but as a flash, the glory of the 
diaphanous light and golden tongues of flame. 
But what I can avouch for with entire certainty 
is the ecstasy of prayer in which Cressida was 
rapt out of herself. She was oblivious to what 
passed around her, and could not control her 
sighs of deep, loving contentment. There was 
1 Page 189. 


[ 194 ] 


REQUIEM iETERNAM 


a light of bliss upon her face that all might see. 
Something stirred powerfully within her. And 
when I remembered that her heart and his had 
been as one all these long years in a constant 
communion, 

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; 

Distance, and no space was seen, 

it seemed to me as if the Everlasting Arms had 
embraced them both in that day’s Divine 
Communion. 

So they loved, as love in twain 

Had the essence but in one; 

Two distincts, division none: 

Number there in love was slain. 

The priest made his thanksgiving in front 
of the altar. Then, after vesting in a black 
cope, he gave the absolution, and the lid of 
the coffin was screwed on. Giovanni had been 
active in organising an imposing funeral. The 
procession was headed by the village band of 
Vicolo, of which Christopher had been presi¬ 
dent. The parish Confraternity of San 
Momme, Vicolo, in their beautifully crimped 
white cappas and red capes followed next, and 
then the sixteen Solitaries in their tunics, bare¬ 
headed. The coffin was borne by six of our own 
contadini, dressed in white cappas with masks, 
and beside them, six on each side, walked twelve 
[195] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Salesian sisters from the Institute at Vicolo, 
carrying candles. Immediately behind the 
coffin, dressed in a simple black cashmere gown, 
her head covered by a black lace mantilla, 
walked Cressida, holding a large yellow taper. 
The crowd of villagers who followed had fallen 
back respectfully some twenty paces, and she 
stood out alone in space as if she had been a 
Queen. The procession did not proceed im¬ 
mediately to the grave, but went winding 
through the woods along yellow paths and 
across grassy swards, up hill and down dell, 
past the trim cottages of the Solitaries and the 
big white statues of Saints and Anchorites. At 
the sound of the sweet piercing wail of the 
funeral march, crowds of birds rose into the air 
and flew backwards and forwards overhead, 
calling loudly, more in delight than affright, so 
it seemed. 

This is the opening of the funeral march 
that the band played for Christopher Mavourez 
through the whole of the half-hour’s reverent 
procession through the woods, except when the 
music ceased to rest, and then the drums, in 
solemn rhythmic roll, took up their tale. There 
is none of the oppressive gloom of a Dead- 
March-in-Saul in popular Italian funeral 
music: it is hopeful, even cheerful; there is sor- 
[ 196 ] 


REQUIEM JETERNAM 



row for the absence of a friend who has become 
invisible, joy that he lives for ever. 

I had been made master of the ceremonies, 
and so had to pass continually up and down the 
procession, directing. Never have I seen sight 
so impressive and beautiful. There was real 
pomp here, however simple, high honour, hom- 


[ 197 ] 

























































CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


age, paid as if to a dead king and hero; com¬ 
fort, consolation, respect, admiration, offered 
to the queen and saint who survived him. There 
was loud lamentation, too, which must have 
severely tried the brave woman who followed 
alone with such wonderful self-control. “Sor 
Cristoforo” had been much beloved. He had 
early been voted “senza superbia,” the greatest 
compliment that the simple Italian can pay to 
a “gran signore.” His loss was therefore 
deeply felt. 

At length the procession came to the grave¬ 
side on the sward before Casauban’s cottage. 
The music ceased; the lamentations became 
more pronounced. Poor Giovanni gave way 
badly. It was terrible to hear the stifled sobs 
of this strong, matter-of-fact, quiet, practical 
man of affairs, and to see him so shaken by 
feeling. More than ever did I admire the brave 
heroine who, deathly pale, leant on Dr. Castel- 
franchi’s arm for support, crying gently and 
quietly. But I was shocked to notice the 
change that had come over her in the night. 
After a brief impassioned panegyric by Fra 
Antonio, the body was lowered to its last rest¬ 
ing-place and the deeply moving ceremony was 
at an end. 


[ 198 ] 


REQUIEM iETERNAM 


For the rest of the morning Cressida sat out 
in front of the villa, writing. Teresina dis¬ 
covered her there in a dead faint, and ran for 
Dr. Castelfranchi, who had not yet left for his 
home in the village hospital below. Casauban 
and I were summoned. Castelfranchi had gone 
to our little pharmacy in the basement of the 
villa to mix a cordial. Meantime Cressida re¬ 
vived. “Mr. Casauban,” she said apologeti¬ 
cally, “I fear I am not able to travel this after¬ 
noon. I am sorry to be so troublesome. May 
I stay a day or two till my strength comes 
back?” 

“Why a day or two only,” replied Casauban. 
“Do please stay as long as you like. The air 
here is bracing and will do you good. Teresina 
is entirely at your service.” 

“How kind you are. I have been writing out 
a codicil to my will this morning. I ought to 
have asked your leave first to two of its pro¬ 
visions. I am leaving the Cavalca Villa and 
grounds to you and Mr. Mauldsley jointly, so 
that if I die soon, you may appoint somebody 
to carry out the scheme of which I spoke last 
night. If the experiment fails, if the Ordinary 
disapproves,—I have no heirs, please sell all 
and devote the property to any charitable pur- 
[ 199 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


poses you may think fit. It could not be in 
better hands for distribution. I have long 
since sold Llanymdovery, and I will see that, be¬ 
sides the villa itself, ample means are left to 
carry out the project. Mr. Casauban, I have 
to thank you from the bottom of my heart for 
a lesson you have taught me. Ever since I 
read the Solitaries of the Sambuca , I have for¬ 
bidden my lawyers to invest savings, and have 
given them away as you do. As you say, giv¬ 
ing is child’s play to him that hath. 

“My second request is that, seeing that you 
have no monastic inclosure, you would allow 
me to be buried here. Not in the same grave, 
but next to him, close by him. He wished his 
name Christopher alone to be written where he 
lies. Please, I would like nothing else but 
Cressida to be written over me. Let the two 
slabs that cover us be placed side by side, and 
be joined by the insertion of a small slab for an 
inscription. On this will you, dear Mr. Casau¬ 
ban, write a few words saying that here in the 
soil of this holy Solitude we found in the end 
union on earth, and that here, too, we entered 
into eternal rest. And, oh please may what you 
write be in Latin? I know he loved that every¬ 
thing connected with the Church and her 
[ 200 ] 


REQUIEM 2ETERNAM 


ceremonies should be in Latin. Even his 
Rosary, I now hear, he always said in Latin.” 

“All your wishes shall be scrupulously 
obeyed, if so be that it falls to us to carry 
them out,” replied Casauban. “But I hope 
you will come over here for an annual visit for 
many years to come. Let it become your 
custom to stay here every month of May. 
Consider the visit as your annual Retreat. 
Please Heaven, the peace of nature and the 
peace of God will never be wanting in these 
lovely woods.” 

Dr. Castelfranchi came up at that moment. 
He felt her pulse again. “I am not well enough 
to travel to-day, doctor,” she said. “My kind 
friends will let me stay a few days longer. Do 
not condemn me to bed, dear doctor. I am not 
ill. All I want is rest. Requiem ceternam. Let 
me always sit out here in the sun. I will obey 
you in every other way.” 

We moved away and left her to her writing. 
“She will hardly live a week,” said Castel¬ 
franchi, “and she knows it. It is a case beyond 
medical science. The spirit has already poised 
for departure. After that act, involuntary and 
unconscious as it may be, no man may hope to 
recall it to earth.” 


[201 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Castelfranchi was right. Within a week her 
rare and beautiful spirit had fled. Who could 
wish it otherwise? Every day she had walked, 
with Teresina’s help, as far as Casauban’s 
cottage. Under the little porch a chaise- 
longue had been placed for her, and there she 
lay some hours every day in great tranquility. 
There each day I went to greet her. And there 
where I had first seen Paul, there where I had 
first seen Christopher, there I found her, lying 
hushed in death, still and beautiful as the figure 
of Monna Ilaria on her marble bier in the 
Cathedral at Lucca. In her hand she held a 
copy of the Imitation open towards the end of 
Chapter V of the Third Book, and I like to 
believe that she died in the actual reading of 
that paragraph which speaks so melodiously of 
her love for God: 


5. Amor vigilat, et 
dormiens non dormitat. 
Fatigatus non lassatur, 
arctatus non coarctatur, 
territus non contur- 
batur: sed sicut vivax 
flamma et ardens 
facula, sursum erumpit, 
secureque pertransit. Si 
quis amat, novit quid 
haec vox clamet. Mag¬ 
nus clamor in auribus 


Love watches, and 
sleeping slumbers not; 
toil-worn is not weary; 
affrighted, is not dis¬ 
mayed; in bondage, is 
no prisoner; but like a 
living flame and torch 
a-fire, it leaps upward 
and passes onward un¬ 
troubled. He who loves, 
well knows the accents 
of this voice. A loud 


[ 202 ] 


REQUIEM iETERNAM 


Dei est ipse ardens 
affectus animae quae 
dicit: Deus meus, amor 
meus: tu totus meus, 
et ego totus tuus. 


cry in God’s ears is that 
which the soul proffers 
in her glowing ardour: 
My God, my Love: 
Thou art all mine, and 
I am all Thine. 


The signs of age and weariness which had begun 
to appear since the day of the funeral had all 
been smoothed away now, and I thought of her 
rather as the sweet young girl of fifteen with 
the lambent flame of virginal purity playing 
round the golden crown of her head, whom 
Christopher had met in a city schoolroom in 
that far distant month of May, than of the 
saintly woman before me, mature in good 
works, chastened by sacrifice, and sanctified by 
those high states of supernatural prayer which 
rise there where there is unity without 
multiplicity, there where the soul is simple, 
essential and one in itself, that is to say, in its 
very ground and basis, in which a man may 
apprehend the arcana of his spiritual hymen, 
though it be in no wise given him to utter the 
unspeakable words which he has heard in the 
consecration service of those mystic nuptials. 

* * * * * 


We buried Cressida side by side with 
Christopher, on the edge of the peaceful woods. 
[ 203 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 

Her soul ascended, encircled as by an aureole 
with the sacred fires which arose from the 
hidden recesses of the Solitaries in the Church 
of St. Paul and St. Anthony. A great block 
of white Carrara marble covers their peaceful 
resting-place. It is now inclosed in a low 
wrought-iron railing. A marble statue of St. 
Austin in the act of blessing rises majestic at 
the head of the grave, and on either side of him 
we have planted a young cypress. Their names, 
Christopher, Cressida, nothing more, have 
been engraved at the head of the tomb. Una 
Prece is written at the foot of it. And in the 
centre figures the legend which Casauban wrote, 
telling of their last union on earth in the grave, 
and of their blessed union for ever in the world 
beyond: 

SACRIS SUB UMBRACULIS HUJUS SOLITUDINIS 
UNIONEM INVENERUNT SUPREMAM PACEMQUE 
CONSECUTI SUNT iETERNAM. 

Here the anthem doth commence: 

Love and constancy is dead; 

Phoenix and the turtle fled 
In a mutual flame from hence. 

Threnos. 

Beauty, truth and rarity, 

Grace in all simplicity, 

Here enclos’d in cinders lie. 

[ 204 ] 


REQUIEM iETERNAM 

Death is now the Phoenix nest; 

And the turtle’s loyal breast 
To eternity doth rest. 

Truth may seem, but cannot be; 

Beauty brag, but ’tis not she; 

Truth and beauty buried be. 

To this urn let those repair 
That are either true or fair; 

For these dead birds sigh a prayer. 

From The Phoenix and the Turtle. 


[ 205 ] 















WEE JESU AND ST. JOHNNIKIN 











WEE JESU AND ST. JOHNNIKIN 


The following is a translation of Christopher 
Mavourez’s favourite Netherlandish ballad 
which he learnt from the old Flemish maid when 
a child at Bruges. It is redolent of the ages of 
faith, and of the blithe spirit which is born of 
faith. Against the academic properties I have 
kept, where I could, the Netherlandish di¬ 
minutives, if only as an object lesson of the loss 
our melodious language sustains in not having 
vindicated to itself the free use of this infinitely 
tender and delightful means of depicting the 
familiar graces and intimate affections of the 
human heart. The beauty of the original as 
language I can in nowise convey, but in the 
face of such honied speech and flowing measures 
I, for one, shall cease to mock at Goropius Be- 
canus, the ponderous old Flemish philologist, 
who, in the sixteenth century, demonstrated in 
the most approved fashion, that Low Dutch 
was the language spoken in Eden in the happy 
days before man’s first disobedience. 

This translation originally appeared in the 
Caldey Pax of May, 1920. 

[ 209 ] 


CHRISTOPHER AND CRESSIDA 


Give ear, and hear, and I will tell. 

What on a summer’s day befell 
Wee Jesu and St. Johnnikin, 

A-sporting with a lambikin. 

In the fresh green springing clover-land. 
Each with a crusekin in his hand. 

Their plump white footikins were all bare; 
Their lippikins red as coral rare. 

The chubby little prattlers. 

They sat by the running waters, 

The sun it stood up in Heaven so high. 

Each drank the other’s milk-cup dry. 

One stroked the lambikin’s noddlekin sweet. 
The other tickled it under its feet; 

The lambikin went a-springing, 

And Johnnikin followed singing; 

And skipping and tripping over the lea, 
These two krollebollekens danced for glee. 

But as from the dance they panting stood. 
The lambikin baa’d aloud for food; 

Wee Jesu gave it crumbs of bread, 

And Johnnikin gave it hay instead; 

In the whole wide world no pair so gay. 

As these two cousinkins were that day. 

Then Johnnikin when it was eventide. 

Set cousinkin on the lamb astride: 

“ My pretty man, go ride apace, 

’Tis time that we did homeward race; 

For Motherkin will be all a-fret. 

That we are not back in the homekin yet.” 

[ 210 ] 


WEE JESU AND ST. JOHNNIKIN 

They rode and ran all hand in hand. 

And rolled and tumbled in the sand, 

These tiny weeny chitkins, 

They gave such mighty skipkins. 

That all the children stopped their play. 

To see the toddlekins pass that way. 

At home dear Motherkin had this hour, 

Kneaded a cake of sugar and flour; 

Down sat the babes so debonair 
To eat their dainty simple fare; 

They were so gleeful and so glad, 

No King’s feast ever such merriment had. 

And after eating down they sank, 

On their kneekins our dear God to thank; 

Mary gave each tiny mite 
A sweetmeat, and kissed them both good-night, 
And sang them to sleep with a lullaby, 

While the lamb went to bed in the stall close by. 

M.C. 


[ 211 ] 














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9 7 1924 









































